


Know Thyself, or Echoes

by supposition (averyWay)



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anagnorisis, Character Study, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Em-Dash/Semi-Colon (tragic), F/M, Gen, Horror, Internal Monologue, MST3K Mantra, Multi, No Aro/Sulpicia, Other, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Pulp, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Speculative fiction, Stream of Consciousness, bellaro, but like really thinky pulp, by my reckoning 'twill be a slow burn, having fun, just a little horror, might go off the rails a smidge, more book-based than movie-based, never enough tags, no beta we die like mortals, on this train we support soft Alice/Jasper, origins of vampirism, sci-fi soft as marshmallows, sci-fi that would give you spinal alignment issues were it a mattress, telling-not-showing party, the kitchen sink, the sci-fi bits are also a slow burn lol, the smushiest sci-fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 56,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/averyWay/pseuds/supposition
Summary: "Those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy." - Marcus Aurelius, MeditationsStill, Bella and Aro think too much.
Relationships: Aro/Bella Swan
Comments: 56
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.”

\- Marcus Aurelius _, Meditations_

* * *

_  
Bella_

The difference between Forks and Phoenix was quite like the difference between Charlie and Renée, and Bella felt some lingering guilt that her preference for the latter place over the former mirrored her preference between her parents. She did love Charlie, though, and knew she just wasn’t as _close_ to him as she was to her mother—she had been, she might realize years later, perhaps _too_ close to her mother, and at seventeen years of age this distance would help her—had helped her—to better establish her own identity. But these were thoughts to be had years later. They did not pass through the now-seventeen Bella’s head as she stared out her bedroom window at the darkening sky and the pools of soft twilight shadows that submerged the nearly rural suburban street below.

She would grow to better appreciate the subtleties and quiet of Charlie’s affection, she figured. Even if she missed her mother and Phoenix terribly for a while. Similarly, she figured that the things she had liked well enough about Forks, those odd summers, would mostly endure. The smell of the trees, for instance—except maybe in winter. But then there was snow to wonder about, to anticipate. The cloud cover and misty rain that began to thoroughly envelope the town at this time of year was already a novelty. She’d always spent the height of summer here, after all. The turning into fall was unfamiliar. She’d never seen so many trees blaze in autumn colors and drop leaves, and soon, they would do this, and she _was_ looking forward to it. Something else to anticipate, even if there were a lot of evergreens around, too. —she would see those, also, bedecked with snow, like in movies.

What chores would she need to help with? Raking? Shoveling? She’d have to ask Charlie for a rundown, though a tired part of her—that had been traveling for hours now, and was not yet used to this place being home—felt imposed upon by the mere thought of _work_. So she put the thought away, turned from the window, and flopped back onto her bed.

At the thought of school—the day after tomorrow—a frisson of nerves passed through her stomach and chest, trailing tension and unease until a deep breath shook the feelings loose. Renée always had her daughter learn her newest hobbies alongside her, and meditation techniques of different sorts had been introduced to Bella over the years. Some were useful, even as briefly as Renée had pursued them. Bella was grateful.

_Here are things to look forward to._

_Here are things to be thankful for._

Nothing was too small to be counted. Anything which helped transform or bolster against the less helpful emotions was welcome to her consideration. Not that the goal was to wholly _avoid_ or _bury_ the unpleasant stuff—

A prickle in her throat, then. A tingle, a slight burning that sprang up to her eyes and nose. Bella would miss her mother, Phoenix—even the semi-friend acquaintances she had managed to have at school, even the half-familiar faces of neighbors she was usually too shy to talk to—ah, there it was. She’d already done most of her crying before leaving, but here was the residue lurking heavy beneath her thoughts.

She didn’t want to be _this_ selfless, but what choice did she have? She didn’t want to think that Renée wanted to be with Phil instead of her own daughter—it didn’t have to be as black-and-white as that. Of course Renée would want to travel with her husband. And Phil was _fine_. Bella’d be leaving for college in just a couple of years anyway. A few more tears wouldn’t hurt her, though. And no one had to know.

That thought and the bit of crying further eased the tightness in her gut, leaving her content. Wiping her eyes, Bella thought: _I am grateful for privacy and the freedom of private thoughts._ Feeling lighter, she headed downstairs for dinner. Charlie had promised an order of pizza to commemorate Bella’s move.

Charlie was a bit awkward, a bit gruff, but in her current intentionally rosy state of mind she found it endearing. She knew from past summers that she would sometimes find his reserve insurmountable—a distance she didn’t know how to cross. But for now, she was at peace, and Charlie tended to meet her with a clumsy kind of harmony. It was comfortable, as they sat at the dinner table.

Her fatigue from traveling flared into a hunger stronger than she expected, and Charlie grinned at her over his own slices as she pulled a third from the box. “Looking forward to school Monday?”

He caught her with the question just as she took a sizable, cheesy bite. She scrunched her nose at him, and he smiled innocently as she chewed as quickly as her jaws could manage. A drink of water later, and she gave answering a shot. “I…I’m kind of nervous, honestly.”

This was, in fact, understatement. She was not sure yet if she loathed that a whole day stood between her and the trials of _new school_ or if she was grateful for the breathing space. She’d probably alternate between the two states at least five times tomorrow.

Charlie hesitated. Bella could almost see the _time-to-parent?_ gears turning in his head as he thought. “That’s natural. Good kids around here, though.”

“I guess you would know if any of them were…” Trouble? Bad influences? Describing her unknown peers with any of these terms made her feel like the worst kind of teacher’s pet. Maybe that was just a risk inherent to being a police chief’s daughter.

“Yeah, never run into any serious issues with the kids here. Bust ‘em for drinking and trespassing sometimes, if they pick the wrong piece of land to party, but nothing too bad.” He looked conflicted here, as though he had immediate regrets over implying that underage drinking was _not_ the worst crime known to man.

Bella smiled. “Not really my kind of thing.”

“Ah, yeah, I know, Bells.” His eyes crinkled as he bit into pizza, as much of a smile as he could return while eating. Bella felt a spark of warmth in her chest and a wave of solid happiness pass over her. Charlie knew her well enough to not be too worried about her. She liked being trusted. She’d live up to it.

_Teacher’s pet_ , whispered the little voice in her head, but it was a soft and humorous voice. She was too shy to be a show-off like that term suggested; making things easy on Charlie was a much simpler affair.

* * *

She slept like the dead Saturday night, but Sunday night was all anxious thoughts and the nighttime creaking of a mostly unfamiliar house. Monday found her bleary-eyed but electrified by the nervous energy of the task before her. The truck Charlie’d presented her with upon their arrival at his—their—house Saturday was perversely reassuring in its ancient rumble as she guided it to the high school. Charlie had offered to drive her and pick her up for this, her first day, but she’d decided to be a little brave about it.

Driving herself to school shouldn’t be a huge deal, really. Calling it a brave action felt silly. But…also true. She stuck with it. _That’s right. I’m being…brave._

She left the house early, just in case. Though still not before Charlie. She cursed the idea of anything that would put _her_ on the road before six in the morning.

These Forksian mornings—would Forksian be the word?—were crisp for her taste, she had learned some moments ago, and as the school came into view, she hoped once more that she did not stick out in the sweater she had pulled over a T-shirt as she left the house. It would be far from embarrassing, to be just more warmly dressed than everyone, but she wanted to draw as little attention as possible.

If she had thought about it more, or been less sleep-deprived, perhaps she would have realized what a futile hope that was _before_ being confronted with a classroom full of curious faces. Faces that were, to be clear, curious not toward the intricacies of English literature, but instead seemingly every visible detail of Isabella Swan.

She fought the urge to flee back to the administrative offices. The woman’s name was already gone from her head, but her overly inquisitive attitude toward Bella was nothing compared to the novelty-starvation that was rolling off of the twenty-odd teenagers in front of her. There was no way to avoid this—the point of getting to school early (empty halls and rooms) had been rendered moot by needing to go to the front office first, and given she hardly knew her way around, she expected each class of the day would be full of people before she found the right room.

Stuttering and stumbling through an introduction at the teacher’s behest, Bella could find little to be thankful for at that moment. Her face was burning and her palms were sweating as she took the empty chair Mr. Mason directed her to. Not a silver lining in sight.

Until the bell rang and the girl named Angela, sitting to her right, spoke to Bella before their more violently curious peers could. Angela struck Bella so immediately as gentle and safe, with her quietly addressed, “Hello, it’s nice to meet you. Do you need help with anything?” that Bella sank into a reassuringly prompt feeling of thanks.

“Thank you,” Bella breathed, perhaps more earnestly than Angela had expected. The other girl—dark straight hair, glasses—blinked once and then smiled encouragingly, and Bella continued. “I don’t really know my way around. Could we, um compare schedules? And if it’s not too much trouble…?”

Angela nodded. “Yes! I’d be happy to help you find your away around.”

A boy with brown hair who had been hovering nearby nearly squeaked. “I’d be happy to help too! I’m Mike.” He proffered his hand.

Bella waffled. She didn’t like shaking hands.

Another girl, with artfully curling brown hair, swooped in. “She doesn’t want to touch that thing! Who _knows_ where it’s been.” She pushed Mike’s hand away.

He looked at her like a kicked puppy before grinning good-naturedly. “Gosh, Jess, so rude. Maybe some of us have a sense of etiquette.”

The so-called Jess rolled her eyes and smiled intensely at Bella. “ _Hello_ , I’m Jessica. If you need _any_ help corralling Mike or the other boys, you can count on me.”

Bella looked between the three other teenagers, gobsmacked. “I, um. Thanks. Nice to meet you.”

“So what’s your schedule like, Bella?” Angela asked, bringing the topic back around. Bella was passingly pleased the other girl remembered from her introduction to not call her _Isabella_. With that, her response came a little more smoothly this time, and the haphazard trio brought together by Bella’s presence proceeded to work out their own schedule for who could most easily direct Bella between classes for the rest of the day.

She sat with them at lunch. Also present at the table were a cheerful Eric and a frowning Lauren. Others were nearby whom she would not manage to remember the names of until another day or two of exposure at least. Bella let the cafeteria chatter flow around her and attempted to pay attention to Jessica’s half-whispered comments about other students she had yet to meet, but…she was feeling frazzled. Her mind skipped over the facts and opinions Jessica delivered with no hope of retaining them, the mild cacophony of a couple hundred high schoolers melting into a blur and hum to her senses. _Float upon this_ , the thought passed through her mind. _Rest._

It was as she carved out this mental and emotional space for herself that a group of late arrivals walked into her periphery through the cafeteria doors. Her gaze was drawn to them. They practically glowed in the fluorescent lights. Her awareness clung to them like they were a beacon in a foggy night—a sudden and stark feeling stole her breath as she looked at them, a feeling that she had indeed been in a deep, dark place but now rays of light burst through her vision.

She blinked several times and exhaled slowly through her nose, trying to clear her imagination of the peculiar image. Jessica took note of Bella’s attention, her stream of consciousness interrupted as she followed Bella’s gaze.

“Oh, yes, _them_.” A sour note crept into her voice. “Pretty, aren’t they? Too good for us mere mortals, I guess.”

Pretty? Bella blinked again, slowly, glanced at Jessica and back again to the five newcomers. Were they pretty? She couldn’t tell. There was something—a cold and sharp air to them, like an early and harsh winter— _pretty_ was too soft a word. “Oh?” she managed in response.

“Yeah, the Cullens and the Hales. They keep to themselves, mostly.”

_The Cullens and the Hales._ “Family?” Bella wondered aloud. They looked similar to each other, kind of. Pale. _And “pretty”…I guess._

“Kind of? The family is weird, honestly. Moved here a couple years ago. Rosalie and Jasper Hale—those are the blondes—are siblings, the niece and nephew of Mrs. Cullen. Dr. Cullen and Mrs. Cullen adopted them. And Emmet, Edward, and Alice are all just adopted.”

“Is that weird?” Bella swallowed and looked again at Jessica, some feeling returning to her extremities. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ “I mean, modern families, right? And adoption seems…good.”

“Oh, sure!” Jessica seemed embarrassed and waved her hands, as though physically clearing up misconception. “None of _that_ is too weird, but…the Hales and Cullens are all, like, _dating_? Not like in a _super_ creepy way, just Alice and Jasper—and Emmett and Rosalie—they’re together.” She motioned with her hands in front of her to indicate the couples without pointing to the family. “They just all have this _vibe_ , anyway...y’know? Like they’re totally unapproachable.”

Bella nodded mutely. She could agree they had a vibe. But as her gaze travelled back to the strange family, who had collected food and now sat at their own table—isolated from the rest of the cafeteria by some invisible but palpable barrier—all she could think of was how very much she wanted to understand them.

What was there even to understand? An uncommon situation, certainly, but Jessica’s explanation had been straightforward. There were no obvious gaps or mysteries. So what if they were standoffish? Bella was shy. She shouldn’t throw black kettles in glass houses, as Renée would say. It seemed unlikely that all five of them would be very introverted, but the social difficulties of others, whatever the cause, only mattered much to Bella when they were, say, Charlie’s. Snobbery was not in her wheelbarrow. (Another Renéeism.)

What had come over her when she first saw them? Upon further (discrete, in stolen glances) examination, yes—they _were_ rather beautiful, in a shared haunted Victorian sort of way—pale skin, dark circles around their eyes, not anything Bella would expect to garner the jealousy that Jessica seemed to feel. Their terribly symmetrical features and oddly perfect hair? Yes, perhaps those things warranted jealousy. But why did they all look so tired? — _that_ wasn’t such a huge mystery, was it, enough that she could barely take her eyes off them?

Jessica had been pulled into some other conversation, freeing Bella from paying any mind to her voice in particular. Trying to hear what the odd family members said, if anything, proved fruitless; the din of the cafeteria drowned them out. She allowed free rein to the compulsion to peek—she told herself it was an attempt to summon up whatever had come over her earlier for further examination, but the new thirst to _know them_ burning up the edges of her thoughts belied that.

She was half-relieved, half-frustrated when lunch ended, and followed Angela and Mike to their next class—Biology.

* * *

The only empty seat in Biology was, per the dictates of fate, next to one of the Cullens. Not Alice, she presumed, seeing as it was a more masculine sort of fellow than that name tended to imply. But whether Emmett or Edward, she could not recall from Jessica’s explanation.

Her inexplicable need to ferret out the secrets of the Cullens burned with new vigor. _What secrets?_ She demanded of herself. _Stop it. And don’t call it a_ need _. It’s just a strong (random!) desire._ _Framing is important._

The Cullen before her did not return her interest, sliding a bored glance in her direction before staring once more out the window.

That was kind of a relief. Bella had spent the morning being the guest star in everyone’s day—the live audience applauds when they walk on set, putting the script on hold—and she was weary of it. Being ignored was a refreshing return to normality. It was the script she expected.

Mike was absorbed in a conversation with his partner, and Angela had also already gone to sit at her own bench with her own partner. But she passed a sympathetic look between the hesitant Bella and the enigmatic E. Cullen and sent Bella a thumbs-up—perhaps assuming that Bella’s awkwardness was due to the sudden prospect of a _pretty boy_. Of course, her awkwardness was for something much sillier than that. Regardless, Bella smiled back and at last walked toward the bench.

_Princess Isabella the Brave_ , her mind encouraged her in a voice that sounded like Charlie from thirteen years ago. She mouthed the last word to herself before sliding into the seat. “Hi,” she mumbled. She watched Cullen in her peripheral vision. When it seemed he wouldn’t respond, she couldn’t help a sigh. _You see that, brain? Can’t get blood from a turnip. Be curious only about people that_ speak _, please._

A strangled choke halted her mid-way through pulling a notebook and pen from her backpack. She looked around on the resumed way up—was someone sick?—before realizing the noise had come from her neighbor.

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice low, her curiosity subdued in the face of a more altruistic impulse.

The stare that he gave her in response seared itself into her mind as surely as touching a hot stove, and every flame of query she’d felt toward the Cullens went out at once. His face was a grimace, his mouth caught in a mask-like contortion, and his eyes were—she blinked—black with rage.

_Not a metaphor?_ meeped a tiny voice in her head.

The notebook and pen slipped out of her hands in her shock, falling to the floor with a muted thud and a clatter in front of her. “S-sorry, _I’m sorry_ —“ She apologized, her voice going squeaky in an attempt to apologize for _everything_ _ever_ , _Jesus Christ, why are you so angry?_

Bella lunged to gather her things, feeling time to be _of the essence_ , but as she did, Cullen jerked away from her— _Disgusted? Scared?_ She could barely see his face as she whipped her head up—to follow as he tumbled backward, sliding off of the bench at a _wrong_ angle—but then he was just a heap on the other side, and Bella abandoned her reach for her things, to yelp and jump up from her seat. “ _Areyouokay_!”

The others were asking _what happened_ and _is he okay_ , but Bella couldn’t process their questions, arrested by Cullen’s face looking up at her from the floor. His expression changed so quickly, she almost thought she was imagining it, but the fires of _must-know_ had been rekindled with those black, sorrowful eyes staring up at her. She could feel the drive to _know_ sharpen her thoughts, her attention, to a knife pointed directly at the teenager sprawled before her. Time felt slower and like it skipped and repeated itself, so quickly was she able to reflect on what she saw.

Before his sorrow had been an endless wrath, an anger like she had never seen before, worse even than that which he had fixed her with moments before. But then it _had_ ended, dissolved into a sadness, a regret, enough to make her consider again the wordless question she felt toward his family—and now—he almost _smiled_ , before his face twisted in pain. It all happened _so_ fast, but Bella was _certain_ …

“Auuugh,” he groaned.

“Edward, what happened?” Mr. Banner knelt next to him.

Edward cradled his right wrist to his chest and took a deep, gulping breath, like he’d been holding it. He exhaled in a hiss. “Sorry, Mr. Banner—I think I landed wrong—I think I’ve broken my wrist.”

Bella was _sure_ …

“Oh dear.” Mr. Banner reached down and helped Edward pull himself up, but—Bella’s eyes narrowed—the weight was all wrong, like Edward was subtly supporting _himself_ with his legs still on the bench—“You’ll have to go to the nurse’s office, then, and possibly on to the hospital from there—” Mr. Banner’s voice faded to static to Bella’s hearing.

Bella was _convinced_ …

The two men straightened, Edward wincing as though he were thoroughly jarred. He stepped carefully around the bench. Mr. Banner stayed close but allowed Edward to walk on his own feet around the island and toward the door.

Bella was _positive_ …

Edward Cullen was faking it.

And she had no concrete idea why she thought so.

* * *

A teacher from a nearby room who had a planning period for the hour watched over the class while Mr. Banner was off escorting Edward. After their teacher returned, a solid chunk of the class period remained—enough to cover much of the intended material. There wasn’t a lab today, so there was some flexibility to the lesson. The kids would just have a bit more reading to do for homework. Such was as Mr. Banner told them.

Of course, Bella’s own brain was a million miles away from all of that, busily eating itself as she tried to work out why she was so sure Edward hadn’t been hurt. (And, further, if he was pretending, _why_?) Bella followed Angela and Mike out of Biology, the two looking back at her but unwilling to (each for their own reasons) ask her what happened with Edward.

Bella’s thoughts marched on. Jessica would have mentioned it if Edward were, say, prone to fits of extreme anger, right? If he wasn’t, that suggested that Edward had been pissed at _her_ , she, in particular, _Bella herself_. But what had she ever done to Edward Cullen?

The picture this painted, the theory she was simultaneously convinced of and extremely doubtful of, was that Edward had pretended to break his wrist in order to get away from her. This was absolutely absurd. Preposterous, even.

Yet an especially insistent voice in her mind was convinced of it. The many versions of his face she had seen in those split seconds—he didn’t just inexplicably loathe her. He was _scared_ of her, or so the voice said. Or perhaps scared of something related to her. _Ridiculous._ Bella was harmless, and her life was ordinary and boring. She might have developed a sudden, unexpected desire to know everything she could about the mystery (which she was fast growing to hate) that she felt surrounded his family, but what was there to be scared of unless they had some big secret to hide? She might pay a little too much attention to them here, at school—she imagined her behavior at today’s lunch would be repeated many days to come—but she wasn’t a stalker. And she had zero murderous impulses.

She had barely spoken to him, anyway. How would he even know she was curious, to become uneasy with her gentle snooping in the first place?

_Maybe he can read minds_ , the voice offered, at which point Bella firmly decided to stop listening to it.

Gym passed in a haze. Volleyball. She did manage not to injure either herself or anyone else, which was always good. She was also an absolute drag on Mike, who partnered with her, but he just smiled and said he didn’t mind carrying her. She shrugged. They ended up losing, and Mike suffered her I-told-you-so with a chuckle. And so gym class came to a close, bringing her first day of school in Forks to the same.

* * *

_Aro_

Three millennia of quiet yearning. No one extant had ever known someone to go so long without finding their mate, and Aro had never thought to ask the rare ancients he had met when he was younger if they had heard of such a thing. He had had other priorities, and no idea then of just how long he would be waiting.

Aro considered fate to be an old friend, at this point, even if he sometimes found himself to be in rebellion against it—like when his mind birthed half-thoughts and delirious waking dreams of the one he waited for. For those taunting hours, if fate had had a physical form, he would have set it aflame. Luckily rare were these episodes—and recent. He’d been succumbing to them not longer than these last two decades. An infinitesimally trivial timespan to beings of his age. Accordingly, he had yet to mention this little condition to any. Even his fellow kings did not know—and they perhaps would never need to.

Some nights after, seeking clarity, as he did now, he went to an outward balcony of their fortress and stared, stared, stared as the galactic arm rose from and then sank into the horizon. His own existence was a small thing, compared to the stars’. How could any human’s, then, be more than a mote of dust? Caught here in a ray of light before a breeze banishes it forever?

Yet.

Aro had had his share of philosophizing over the years. He recognized—as any vampire of his age must—the rigidity that would gradually infect his thoughts, emotions, and actions until someday, as the ancients before him, he would simply cease to move. When was he last convinced by an argument he did not already believe? In his own years of pondering (being rather more prone to navel-gazing than Caius, but less so than Marcus) had he ever truly considered a view that discomforted him? Hadn’t he always found a way to be comfortable with his own thoughts and feelings, had always persuaded reality and fate to manifest at his leisure?

Indeed, there was strength to be had in that. Power. He was more flexible, more fluid, than so many of his kind were when they reached so many years of being as his. His willingness to reform his reality allowed it. But now he had a sudden and awful conviction that there was a stagnant, stiff, decaying core around which his thoughts had flowed all these many, many, many years. Unspoken assumptions that he struggled even now to speak.

At this struggle, this quiet challenge brewing within him—what excitement burst through his being. Heady anticipation, the likes of which he had not known in years, years, years. Had he a beating heart, he might have swooned.

Aro chuckled at the thought, almost surprised at the sound, even as the trials of this challenge began to coalesce as uneasy questions lurking in his mind. Oh, what a joy to be discomfited by his own words…

_My treasure,_ his thoughts whispered to the stars, _did you perhaps die in some other land while I was busy establishing law and order for our kind?_

_Or perhaps you have not yet been born as one of us?_

His eyes widened, pupils dilated—the stars burned brighter in his vision as more light poured through.

How had he never considered it before? The one to complete his soul, as they said—was his treasure still human? Would he recognize his own heart, hidden in human form?

He grimaced. (As these considerations demanded expression.) Humans were such fragile creatures. Any one of them might be only a mote of dust, yes, however—

Any one of them could be what he had been silently seeking all along.

Immediately—by a vampiric reckoning, that is—so minuscule fractions of a second—a wave of sorrow passed through him, and he knew why he had been hiding this from himself. But first, he refused it. _I have been grieved before._ His thoughts skittered across the memory of his sister. _And every being I_ meet _, I feel all their sorrow—intimately._ No, what he was discovering was not as bad as that. _This sorrow cannot be so great, after all, in the face of the thousands of lifetimes of loss I have devoured—_

His own thoughts tangled and tightened around him like a vice. He was caught, his words conjuring meaning other than he intended. _Die Geister, die ich rief…_ The weight within him untethered and blossomed into a bombardment by the wrathful unspoken.

_Knowing a lifetime’s grief in a few minutes and then shaking it off is hardly the same as knowing a true lifetime’s grief—especially as you have made it a matter of such casual_ routine _—_

_Loss I have devoured—_

_How many have you damned, unknowingly, to Marcus’s state? How many lives have you ended that would have been the perfect joy of one of your brethren?_

But the _odds_ of that, he weakly insisted to the accusation—(have the stars always been so blinding?)

_Loss I have devoured—_

_Was it an acceptable risk for a moment’s quick pleasure? Others seek other methods to survive, but you have merely accepted what you perceive to be your lot—how many humans have you slaughtered? Or how many were there that you have permitted your court to devour?_

_Loss I have devoured—_

_Loss I have devoured—_

_Loss I have devoured—_

“No,” he whispered, refusing the inevitable conclusion. But fate had come to visit him again. A vision of long dark hair that veiled the brilliance of the stars and swayed in the breeze—

_What if, blinded to human worth, you have eaten your own heart?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, our first chapter: CHOO CHOO, all aboard the dramatic irony express, KToE 2020.
> 
> Thoughts!  
> \-- Been an age since I consumed much of any non-fanwork Twilight material. "Canon" is a fuzzy concept to me now. I hope you find my divergences enjoyable, or at least tolerable. 🙏 HONESTLY, let's just have some fun with it.  
> \-- "Die Geister, die ich rief" is a German cliché from Goethe's poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". (Yes, on a spiritual level, that means Aro is Mickey Mouse in his scene.)  
> \-- This is loosely influenced/inspired by Alicorn's fics Luminosity and Radiance. Consider reading 'em if you haven't. They're fun.  
> \-- I proofread, but I don't really *edit* for fanfiction, and I am in any case human. If you run into any confusing sentences or jarring typos, let me know, pretty please. In fact, please let me know any thoughts you have anyway.  
> \-- Feels weird as heck to be writing about an open world in these plague times. 😷  
> \-- Rating subject to change, but archive warnings probably won't apply at any point. Characters may be added to the tags as they appear in text, but only if I care to or a request is made.


	2. Chapter 2

_Edward_

He removed the brace from his arm long before Carlisle reached their home. They’d made a good show of him prodding Edward’s arm at the hospital, with a clear announcement of “no need for an X-ray.” Their play had to be thorough. Years of experience had taught them the smallest mistakes—a witness here, a shaky alibi there—could create the need to flee in the night.

Carlisle’s thoughts were a soft but persistent hum to Edward’s mental hearing—he wanted an explanation for his son’s fake injury, concern roiling behind his placid expression. At the school, Edward had indeed promised to explain, in a nigh-subvocal whisper that Ms. Cope had been unable to hear. He was lucky that the school nurse had been on rotation at another school for this ploy of his; Ms. Cope had elected to stay with him until Carlisle arrived, but she made no effort to feel out the state of his wrist herself. Edward’s intentionally but hopefully _subtly_ frosty manner ensured that. Carlisle had arrived as quickly as he believably could. Again, fortunate they were, for Carlisle to have been home from the hospital today, free to come promptly at Edward’s call. Edward did not want to face any other of his family just yet—Esme picking him up would have been worse. Even the drive home would be too short.

Edward allowed more whole minutes to pass in silence as Carlisle sped them over the rural road to home. The dense woods on either side passed in what would be a blur to human sight, but Edward played for a moment at counting leaves while he thought on how to present the day’s events.

“I wanted—” He hesitated, reluctant. Shame burned in his throat like a resurgence of the day’s scorching thirst, but he could not keep this from his father. His friend. “I wanted to drink Isabella Swan’s blood.” The statement felt surreally mundane to describe the intensity of his thirst when he had finally, _fully_ noticed the new student.

The stutter and halt, brief, of Carlisle’s thoughts did not hurt him as much as he feared it would. A weight lifted from his shoulders—

_Oh, dear Edward. I’m so sorry._

_—_ as Carlisle was dismayed, but not disappointed.

 _It’s not your fault,_ came Carlisle’s quick, sincere, stern assurance. _These things happen._ They didn’t happen to Carlisle, though. _You did not act on it. I’m proud of you._

Edward sagged, human-like, into the passenger seat, and unaffected he could feel his brow twist into the sorrow he was prone to. He knew, distinctly, that if he were human, he would be crying.

“I don’t know if I can go back.” School would be a fresh kind of torture, with Isabella Swan.

 _We’ll talk to Alice._ Carlisle looked at his son—his friend—and his eyes shifted in a warm, peculiarly Carlisle-esque non-smile. (No one, Edward was convinced, could _reassure_ like Carlisle, with such a slight change in expression.) “No one will blame you for this _,”_ he said aloud.

Edward was less certain that that was _literally_ true, but he could feel the real meaning that Carlisle intended behind the words: none of his family would despise him for this. They were family regardless.

It did help.

There was no need to explain who she was to Carlisle. They all kept each other up-to-date on any changes to the population of Forks, and Carlisle was usually the one to know first, involved in the community as he was. Such mundane knowledge provided both them and the denizens of the town more safety. There were always humans who smelled a little better to their kind, and it was always easier for those of their lifestyle to generally avoid humans like that. Isabella Swan, however…

A part of him, a part he detested and feared, wanted him to go find her.

 _Perhaps you should hunt,_ Carlisle thought, oblivious to Edward’s own.

“Let’s talk to the others first.” It wouldn’t be long before they were home too.

_Everyone? Are you sure? We can talk to only Alice first, if you want._

Even Edward would have a hard time keeping secrets in his family. It was futile. Besides, given the role he played in their security, it would be best for them all to know promptly that he was…compromised. “Everyone.”

He pulled out his cellphone and sent a message to his siblings:

_Had to return home early. Family meeting when you’re all here._

* * *

“What’s this all about? Alice wouldn’t say,” Emmett complained as he led the others through the door, Alice immediately behind him, her bemused gaze landing solely on Edward, who perched on the edge of a sofa. His form was tight and ready to leap for the door.

Esme stood nearby, as unaware as any to the specific content of Edward’s ordeal but reading in his troubled expression that an ordeal it had been. She was anxious to provide comfort. Carlisle was standing at the large west-facing window, the occasional thinning of the clouds in the overcast sky bringing out a subdued glimmer in his skin.

Alice tossed Edward’s keys to him and peered into his eyes from her position across the room, as though the hodgepodge of flickery visions in her thoughts would settle into something definite if she kept him in sight.

Jasper was mildly irritated. He had been around humans all day. He needed to hunt. _You’re supposed to stay near to help me be safe, but apparently you played hooky instead._ Edward hoped Jasper could feel how truly sorry he was, but he had come so much closer to making the same mistake Jasper feared for himself.

As they had all now gathered, but no one was yet speaking, Rosalie sighed. “Well?”

Edward was quiet. At Carlisle’s silent question— _do you want me to say?_ —he nodded.

Carlisle turned away from the window and opened the meeting. “The new student, Isabella Swan, is a significant test to Edward’s control. He is uncertain he can remain at the school.”

The vampires stilled, save Alice, who leaned forward and frowned. _My head hurts._ Jasper stepped to her side and clasped her hand in his own.

“Sorry, Alice,” came Edward’s voice, softly. Rare for vampires to be able to hurt in a way that was neither battle-inflicted nor psychological. _Another inconvenience to a family member, courtesy me._

Esme placed a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “It must be quite bad, then?”

Emmett whistled. “She must smell great if even Edward’s having a tough time.”

Rosalie shot him a look. _Right? But now’s not the time._ He shrugged as though he had heard the thought as well as Edward had.

All Edward could bring himself to do was cover his face with his hands and nod.

A groan of frustration burst from Alice. “This is ridiculous—there are so many ways this could go. I have no idea if Edward should go back.”

Edward dropped his hands and focused on the brief, tremulous visions passing through his sister’s thoughts.

 _Careful, Edward, some of these—_ Isabella, eyes unseeing, blood coating her neck and clothes—

Edward flinched, the dryness of his throat painfully salient again. He swallowed against it. He could handle it. She wasn’t here, and Alice’s visions were blessedly free of the girl’s scent. “It’s okay.”

Vision: Isabella, skin broken and bloodied—

Alice pushed it away.

Vision: Edward crouched in the tree outside of Charlie Swan’s house—

 _Nope_ , Alice thought.

Vision: Edward and Isabella talking over their biology lab—only a vampire would be able to read the tension in Edward’s form, but he was _managing_ …

Alice brought her attention to bear on this image, this potential causal chain. Countless questions sprung to life in Edward’s own thoughts, but he would wait. Alice needed to focus to sort through this many futures. _Obviously you must stay for this one,_ she thought, idly tracing what decisions would lead to this future.

The others stood, waiting for some verdict of probability. Well, Edward amended, Emmett was mostly waiting for the meeting to be over, and his casual impatience almost brought a smile to Edward’s face. Almost. He was too aware of his would-be victim’s face in Alice’s mind as she considered possibilities.

Vision: Alice and Edward aboard a plane, their faces pinched with worry.

Vision: Alice and Edward in— _Volterra?_ Alice identified in surprise, the supposed kings of their kind standing before her and her brother.

The sight made Edward coil low, sliding from the couch as though such a threat was here before them already. “Why would we—?” Edward began, his voice near-growl.

Alice shook her head and shushed him.

Vision: Alice and Isabella eating lunch together. Well, Alice pretending to each lunch. They were chatting animatedly about some matter. _This way,_ Alice thought. _Not that way._

 _Why would we have gone to the Volturi?_ He clenched his teeth to keep the question to himself. There was no reason to further alert the others to that possibility if Alice had discarded it as avoidable. Let their alarm go unnamed.

Vision: Isabella, with ethereal, pale skin and red eyes. Smiling down at the shorter Alice—she laughed at the other woman’s words—

“ **No** ,” Edward hissed. _Who would turn her? Why a random, innocent human girl?_

Even Emmett was concerned now, his own form tightening toward a stance that was ready to lunge. The whole family had been pulled into wariness against whatever threats only Alice and Edward could see. Jasper radiated a gentle calm, not to erase their collective uneasiness, but to soften the edges of it.

“Edward,” Alice muttered, too fast for any but vampiric ears to parse. _Try deciding about Bella, please—something simple, maybe going to the winter dance with her or something?_

 _Bella?_ He wondered at the short name and straightened, the silliness of that request pulling him further out of his wariness. “Alright.” _I’ll take Isabella Swan to the dance this year,_ he decided. Reluctantly, yes, but that would be hard to change.

Vision: Isabella and Edward dancing in the decorated gymnasium. Friendly, a bit stiff. Isabella’s eyes would focus on him with an intensity he was not used to from humans—(He remembered, suddenly, how she had gazed down at him as he sprawled on the classroom floor)—but then they would grow distant and slide away, as though she were not terribly interested in either him or her surroundings. His own expression was stilted. He was clearly still struggling with her, to both his and Alice’s reckoning, but he was _succeeding_.

 _The most coherent yet_ , Alice’s thought-voice rang through his head in a burst of triumph.

“Why did you ask me to decide—“

Alice frowned and spun through the memories of the last several minutes, presenting visions of Isabella’s life and death with enough force to cut him off. _Look—Bella dies way more often if we aren’t friends with her. And I think—there are only two options, right now, Edward. I don’t really have a full picture yet, but for some reason, either Bella is turned, or she is killed. If you leave, it’s always the “killed” one._

“She’s a child,” he protested.

Alice’s frown took a gentler, more sorrowful turn, matching the tenor of Edward’s objection. “As much as you were.”

“I was dying,” Edward murmured, knowing already that he had no good objection nor solution here. Esme’s hand tightened on his shoulder. From this audible exchange, everyone in the room understood, now, well enough, what was at stake.

“As she will,” Alice provided the confirmation for the benefit of the others, “if you _don’t_ stay.”

He stood. “And you don’t know why all this is like this?” Edward smiled, ironic, forlorn, at his sister. “I’ll stay—” The relieved thoughts that swelled from the rest of his family warmed him. “—but I don’t actually want to take her to to that dance, you know.”

Alice shrugged. “I just needed some clear event to work off of, of the two of you interacting. We can try others if you like. Maybe you could…study with her? Ooh, I could throw a Halloween party—” Alice’s thoughts ran off-course, imagining all of the activities she could arrange for his pending new friend. A friend that, Edward could tell, Alice already considered to be hers too. He would maybe remind her later she hadn’t actually met the girl yet.

Emmett hummed. “If she’s not, y’know, _yours_ , then why is she so tied up with us? Why do you have to be… _friends_ with her?”

Edward was bizarrely grateful for Emmett lacking the tact that would have prevented him from asking that question, because it was precisely what Esme and Carlisle were thinking, and neither would have asked in front of everyone so straightforwardly. It was a small amusement to hear their thoughts go quiet as they each realized their small effort at respecting Edward’s privacy was for naught. Privacy didn’t much exist in their family. He knew that in a way none of them did.

Rosalie was as perplexed as her mate. After all, humans, especially teenagers, were a good audience, and their lives provided a good background hum of energy and vitality for one’s own, but how did one meaningfully befriend any of these children? As equals? Impossible. It seemed like such a chore.

Edward found the flavor of Rose’s thoughts distasteful, but as he considered any topic he might actually talk to Isabella about, he felt some resonance with the concern.

Carlisle interceded. “Perhaps due to whatever force brings us all together as family and that has blessed me with each of you. I grieve if her human life must be cut short—but perhaps she is to join our family, and so we must welcome her with open arms, as we are able. We are all familiar with how painful our kind’s existence may be.”

He meant every word, and Edward felt a sliver of hope that all would be well. Carlisle turned to Alice, who was shifting from foot to foot, barely restraining the desire to go plan months’ worth of bonding exercises with Isa— _Bella_. “Who is likely to turn her, Alice? And how is she most likely to die otherwise?”

Alice slumped. Jasper ran a hand over her back, to comfort. “Ugh. So, who kills her can be—it could be any of us. It could be another vampire entirely. In some cases it’s even, like, a normal human accident, or a criminal. I saw all of these as outcomes, but they’re all so fuzzy and shaky.”

“Like fate itself has decided she should die but hasn’t decided how yet,” Jasper offered, his eyes grim. His mate, however, snorted.

“Yeah. _Fate_. I think she might just be the unluckiest person I’ve ever looked at.” She paused and smiled. “Excepting that instead of her dying a gruesome death, we’re going to be great friends, of course.”

“And who turns her, then?” Carlisle repeated.

Edward noticed then that Alice had been avoiding thinking about that, even when Carlisle had asked directly before. Minutiae of party-planning filled her head at once. “Alice?” he prompted. _What was she hiding?_

Alice grimaced even as she considered hundreds of costume ideas in quick succession. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, and I’ll have to leave for a while, ‘cause if you find out at the wrong time, she might not _die_ , but—but it’s just not as _good_ as it can be.” _It’ll be great_ , she thought, with a brief image of—a starry night sky? Edward tilted his head. But then she slammed the door on those thoughts, ignoring her brother's gaze, and her mind became a veritable wasteland of party games. “Jasper and I’ll only be gone a couple weeks, I think. _Maybe_ a month.”

“Oh, well—” Esme crossed over to the pair and touched each of them on the arm. “That’ll just be like a vacation, won’t it? We’ll have to come up with something to tell the school—maybe everyone should stay out of school, and we can say that there was some family emergency…” She frowned, thinking, _But that won’t help Edward befriend that poor child._

Already, her mind was concerned with Bella’s situation. Edward was comforted by the constancy and easy readiness of his mother’s affection.

“Emmett and Edward should stay in school, for this girl,” Rosalie said. “Emmett can play nice too—right, Alice?” Emmett gave two thumbs up from Rose’s side. Edward could hear that his brother wasn’t thrilled about this, but he didn’t disdain the idea as his mate did.

Rose’s thoughts were now filled with projects for her darling vehicles. She was eager to escape the boredom of school, even if it meant not having as many potential admirers around. That got old, sometimes. Even for Rose.

Alice nodded to the question, with a peek at the new future where Emmett joined Edward’s efforts that supported the plan.

“Then we’ll just say that Jasper, Alice, Esme, and I are out of town because of a Hale family emergency—maybe a death?—and we decided not everyone needed to go. Esme and I can stay away from humans for a month without issue, right?”

Alice, with another quick check—“Yep, looks good. Oh! And I’ll keep an eye on everything still, of course, and call if anything weird pops up.”

Edward got the impression that Alice was even now avoiding looking too hard at the future in his presence, so briefly did she check to answer Rose’s questions.

_What did you see in those dizzying fragments of the future? What oughtn’t we yet know?_

“Of course,” Carlisle said with a warm smile. “Thank you for your care, Alice. You as well, Rosalie, for your suggestions.”

Rosalie preened. Alice beamed at him and Rose before turning back to Edward with a playful glare. _I am_ so _jealous that you get to stay here with Bella._

* * *

Edward did not feel there was anything to be jealous of. The next day, sitting once more in Biology, a useless brace on his arm, his throat **on fire** as he planned to attempt a conversation with the girl while breathing as little as possible—Alice really seemed to have forgotten that at the start of this mess was Edward’s discovery of a new way the universe had decided to torture him. (Impossible though it was for one of their kind to truly forget something.)

Bella—he had now heard other students calling her this and gathered it was her preference; she had yet to say as much—Bella would look at him, surreptitiously for a human but with a hawk-like lingering focus not unlike a vampire who had spotted prey. He feigned absorption in Mr. Banner’s lecture, but he suspected his acting was worse than usual, given his distraction due to the searing, desperate pain she inspired in him. He was concerned she might pick up on more of his oddness than she ought. Is that why she kept looking? She already, unconsciously, suspected something amiss?

If he texted Alice (already fled somewhere north with Jasper), asking her to investigate, would she answer?

He watched the human out of the corner of his eye. He marveled at her complete ignorance of how she had upset his existence and launched him into perhaps the worst trial he had known since Carlisle turned him. She glanced at him, yes, but her quiet mind indicated she was truly focused on the lecture, as he only pretended to be.

It was then, some five minutes into class, that Edward realized either Bella had the emptiest mind he had ever met, or he was unable to read her mind at all. There was nothing—no words, no images, not the ghostly after-image of the teacher’s lecture echoing from her mind to his, nothing.

Now torn between doing his best to ignore her effect on him and listening intently in the direction of where her thoughts _should_ be, to his granular awareness, the class lasted an eternity. His decades of life were nothing compared to the agony induced by Bella Swan. The years were an illusion, and he had surely dreamt them. Only the echo of Carlisle’s words ( _You did not act on it. I’m proud of you._ ) gave him the strength and context to not devotedly imagine the innumerable ways he could kill the young woman next to him and any bystanders that might get in his way or that could prove unfortunate potential witnesses, drawing attention from the Vol—

The specter of the three kings rose abruptly and loomed in his mind, in the form of the vision Alice had seen. They had looked as ever when Edward and Alice walked before them—Caius in cold, constant anger; Marcus with boundless ennui; and Aro, all delight (perhaps due to vampires of such power delivering themselves into his hands). They’d been unsurprised by his and Alice’s arrival—like they’d been expecting it. Had someone told the Volturi they intended to visit? Or had he and his sister been “invited”?

The musing distracted him, partially, briefly, from his pain and frustration. As Persephone had cupped water in her hands to Tantalus’ mouth, he considered wryly—here was a little hiatus from his eternity of torment, though now he felt the stakes all the more. He’d prefer not to get anywhere near Aro’s hands.

When the bell rang, it took no small amount of will for him to stay near Bella. He had yet to talk to her. Perhaps he could wait a day? The memory of an Alice-vision of her corpse flashed in his mine’s eye. No, he shouldn’t wait. “Bella,” he called to her before she could walk too far.

She started and whipped toward him. Of course, he made her nervous. He could read it in the tension in her shoulders and her fingers tapping uneasily against the strap of her backpack, could hear it in the heartbeat he was trying to ignore, even if her mind was silent. His kind unsettled the bravest of humans, and he had undoubtedly been terrifying yesterday before his “fall.” “I wanted to apologize for us…” he grinned, and if it was very slightly pained, assumed she wouldn’t notice, “…starting off on the wrong foot, so to speak.”

Hesitantly—shyly—she smiled back. “You don’t have to apologize for injuring yourself.”

He shrugged and chuckled. Interacting with her like this was a little easier than trying to sit next to her and ignore her. It wasn’t as tempting to imagine eating an entity that spoke. He was also now positive, having heard her voice so clearly, that he was entirely unable to read her thoughts. “It’s more for…how I acted before that. I was having a really, _really_ bad day.”

Her expression softened with sympathy, though her posture was still stiff. “Guess it got even worse, huh?”

“You could say that.” _You’d be wrong, but you could say it._ The counsel of his family had only improved the day.

His cellphone buzzed in his pocket.

“Ready to go, Bella?” Mike Newton asked, eyeing Edward with open suspicion. Edward repressed a scoff and ignored it. _I’m no rival of yours, child._ Angela Weber joined him at Bella’s side.

“Yeah,” she answered, and with a small wave to Edward—“Bye.”—she walked away. “Bye,” he replied.

 _Maybe I_ can _do this_. In the hallway, on his way to his next class, he read the new message from Alice:

_Seems like you’re doing great! Risk at a shiny new all-time low._

Edward smiled at the phone before sliding it back into his pocket. She’d timed her looking to be right after the longest Bella-ful period in Edward’s day, it seemed. He expected he’d receive the next report around this time tomorrow as well.

If only she could tell him why he couldn’t hear Bella’s thoughts.

* * *

_Aro_

The realization of a few nights before had dampened his appetite. He drank with the others as always—it wouldn’t do, for an interior shift of this magnitude to become known to anyone else, even by suspicion. But the physical satisfaction of fresh blood felt hollow, now, even as a subdued purr rose in his throat as he drank. As the human grew limp in his grasp, as he sucked and swallowed the hot, sweet rust from the man’s veins, a sensation he might dub (by analogy to human experience) _nausea_ swept through his body.

Moving his limbs and face as needed to maintain the illusion that he was well-pleased by this meal was effortless. If Aro slept, he could have done it in his sleep. But the waking dreams clouded his vision still, and the actual pleasure of the meal vanished as soon as Aro dropped the body. The snatches of dream-image had even interfered with his reading of the man’s life.

Now.

Even a being of his age and wisdom—yes, wisdom, he had accumulated such a thing over the centuries, in his own way—was inclined to fall into _something like_ mindless routine. After bidding him a good evening, Caius and Marcus each turned and left the dining room, but Aro lingered.

_Had the excess of your life’s blood flowed down this drain, my heart?_

He was confident, at least, that the body lying at his feet had not been the one he waited for, but he resisted the habit to push away all thought of the person the man had been, now that he was done feeding. _Now_ was not the time to let routine consume him. Aro had to concede, having neither attempted to find nor succeeded at finding a mate amongst humanity, he did not know the method. He would need to be open-minded.

If he pored again over the memories of the man’s life, would some twinge of conscience indicate to him that the man had indeed been the mate of his soul? —No, even Aro felt a natural impulse of sympathy to lesser creatures. A stronger feeling must herald a mate, surely. (Surely he could never have been so driven by thirst as to miss it. Now hours removed from the realization, he had hope of this.)

 _Enough of human bodies and spilled blood,_ he thought. He ran back to his chambers. Renata stood at his door—he nodded to her, and she bowed her head. “Go.”

She seemed surprised by his order but, with another bow of her head, left her post.

Aro stilled in the center of his parlor, blind to the furnishings and art he had collected over his time as a ruler of his kind. He appreciated beauty. But no object held it for him, now.

“Now, now, now…” he whispered. Let his own voice serve as his anchor to reality. A mantra, of sorts. _Now._

The dreams addled him, he knew it, but his mind had ever been on the brink of chaos. Millennia of bringing others’ lives into his own being, even with his vampirically expansive capacity for cognition and working memory, took its toll. His thoughts turned faster in new and strange directions than those of his brothers. An errant other-memory could set him laughing or bemoaning the nature of time, mortality, immortality—or merely the injustice of a parking ticket, or the tedium of washing dishes. He had grown skilled at ignoring the other-impulses and at maintaining an _Aro-ness_ at the top level of his thoughts and actions (unless it should otherwise amuse him to be erratic).

The consideration in the dining room to truly let himself sink into a human life had called certain other-memories to the front of his mind. Ones he thought might be worthy of pursuing. Perhaps he should be less _Aro_ for a time. In the Olympic coven, his old friend—Carlisle knew what it was like to find a human mate. The changes to membership in that coven were something Carlisle was dutiful in reporting. Multiple humans had been “rescued” by the man, delivered into their superior state. One of them was Carlisle’s own mate. Aro had only met Edward, and had not read from Carlisle’s mind since before his Esme had been turned.

_Had you known already, friend? Even before she was turned?_

He was not prone to impatience, he reflected. He was not now eager to find his own mate, no. He was simply concerned that the possibility had been closed forever, and _that_ felt like a loss of power. A possible future might have closed—there might be nothing he could do to reopen it. _That_ was truly intolerable.

He insisted it to himself. He had been, in this way, alone for millennia. He could survive millennia more the same. It was simply the principle of such a life that he objected to; he could not suffer his friend fate to dare to tell him _no._ Aro was bolstered by these thoughts. It was not _too_ Carlisle-like for him to seek Carlisle’s advice; he was still very much Aro.

A small voice, perhaps carried by his dreams, perhaps creeping from an old other-memory, supplied that he was denying something important, and this would cost. With all his skill and wisdom, Aro ignored it.

* * *

_Bella_

In a simple text file on the dinosaur of a computer Charlie had put in her room, Bella took some notes. _Entirely uncreepily_ , she insisted to herself. _I’m just recording some things I, with only a rude amount of staring (and not a creepy amount), learned while in public._ The file read:

_Pale skin_

_Dark eye circles_

_Color-changing eyes?_

_Weird family dynamic_

_Wealthy_

_Weird manners—weird bearing. Both of them, even though Emmett’s more casual. Both are kind of tense, like wary._

_Absences. Why did approx half of them leave? Edward seemed reluctant to say._

_Weird VIBE_

Bella sighed. _I am such a cad. Maybe a Grandmother Hale died or something. And here I am, sprouting a tin-foil hat…_

Though, she did not yet have any actual theories (hypotheses, rather). _Because there’s nothing_ _there, brain_ , she repeated. In futility _._ Maybe she should see a therapist? She’d gone to one for a while when Renée had worried about her social anxiety, a couple years ago, and it _had_ helped. But Bella couldn’t help but feel ashamed at the reason she’d be going this time. A budding obsession…

In any case, it wasn’t interfering with her life. There was no harm in it. She’d lose interest, eventually. No therapy required.

Of course, she might have been quicker to lose interest if the Brothers Cullen didn’t pop up in her day at every available opportunity. It was what Angela, Mike, and the others did too, but soon, hopefully, her novelty to them would wear off. She anticipated _that_ day with every ounce of her being. _Could we be friends, and not have me be the new attraction in town?_

Yet she wasn’t unexpectedly and uncomfortably obsessed with any of _them_. No, it was only the pariah brothers—who were, to be fair, uncommonly friendly to her, compared to the cool politesse of how they treated everyone else—who stalked her thoughts.

She cringed and flopped her head onto her desk. “Stalked” was a poor choice of a word. She had never. She would never. And they certainly didn’t!

Two weeks, it had been, since Edward had hurt his wrist, since the others had left. She hoped the rest of the family would come back soon. Not so she could observe them— _no_ —but so maybe the at-loose-ends Edward and Emmett would stop bothering her so much. Maybe then she could direct her thoughts back into a normal mode.

A sigh and stretch later, she closed the text file without saving and pulled her English assignment forward, to sit on the desk in front of her. Maybe writing an essay would be the balm she needed. Sure.

* * *

_Aro_

Three weeks after deciding to visit Carlisle, matters in Volterra were settled for Aro to take his leave. The weeks had passed slowly even by his eonic measure, but he could hardly hurry matters without over-alerting his brothers and the others that this journey was more than whim. He knew from contact with all of them that this already appeared to each to be an unexpected departure, but it was within the bounds of his usual behavior, for now.

He did travel, occasionally, if often with a fuller guard than only his Renata. But he did not intend to intimidate the Olympic coven. Not beyond his unannounced appearance, at least. And traveling light appealed to him. He felt nostalgic, perhaps, for his early days, and the energy granted him by his frustration with his current situation nearly recalled the thrill of politicking and intrigue and conquest, back when their power had been less well-established.

The phantom dreams, too, had lessened. As his plane cut through the night sky, on its way to a private airfield in Idaho, Aro whistled and reclined. Perhaps they would travel by foot to Washington. No, as he considered it, best to take one of the cars after all. Not that he was impatient. It was better for secrecy’s sake.

Not impatient, but he could not ignore the potent expectation building in his thoughts. _It is very unlikely, I should think, that anything will come of this other than a few conversations with my strangest friend._ That would at least be an entertainment. Rebuked by these thoughts, the anticipation waned. He could feel that it would yet reignite at little provocation.

 _What shall I do with you?_ he asked his reflection in the window, his face overlaid on the clouds they passed by. They were glowing, soft in the moonlight. By his calculation, the plane was over the east coast of the United States. Perhaps he would make a short tour of the New World before returning to his duties. Or perhaps a few visits would be _for_ duty. It had been an age since he had visited the southern American continent, and their reach had always been more tenuous there…

His whistled tune grew jauntier. Yes, this trip was well-advised, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to post this chapter a little sooner than I expected to. Please let me know if I missed any awkward wording or typos.
> 
> Might update the tags for some upcoming content. "Origins of vampirism," for instance.


	3. Chapter 3

_Edward_

Things had been going well for some time, so of course that wellness was due to expire. Their little play of friendship with Bella had been going _too_ smoothly. Some drama was needed—or else why would the audience bother to return from intermission?

The day itself had been ordinary, by the Cullens’ current standards.

One unexpected benefit of the weeks spent fighting his natural impulse to devour Bella was that Edward’s acting as a pleasant, polite human was now more ingrained in his behavior than it had ever been before. He simply could not be too intent in the charade, being unable to hear her thoughts as he was—only Alice could warn him if the girl was to discern something vital. Often, Bella’s psychic illegibility had him feeling robbed. _This is what it’s really like_ , he had mused, _to rely on others to detect threats._ That morning, driving to school, he had advised Emmett to be similarly devoted to his own act.

His brother had snorted. “Instead of my shoddy job till now?”

Emmett found the whole business amusing. He enjoyed the small human woman who carelessly and effortlessly tortured his brother. He was also of the opinion that Bella Swan was pretty damn easy to read even without telepathic ability.

 _It’s not the same_ , Edward had thought, but he couldn’t really argue with the assessment, and so he had only shrugged.

 _You’re not too hard to read, yourself, bro._ Emmett had smirked, but then his thoughts turned idly to imagining Rose bent at work on one of her cars, and Edward had been swift to tune out Emmett’s mind. That, undoubtedly, had been the other vampire’s intent. Enough nights had found them squabbling over Edward taking this too seriously (an innocent’s life was at stake; didn’t Emmett care?) and Emmett not taking it seriously enough (innocents died everyday; why was Edward not equally concerned about those lives?). They had quickly found ways to _not_ dissolve into bickering.

Their ability to mutually set aside remotely serious conflict was both a strength and a weakness of their relationship. Edward appreciated that interacting with Emmett tended to be a relief—a break—from the burdens of existence. What was their purpose, to be so long-lived? What drove their kind to petrify, and what awaited them in the state of petrification? How would they ever convince more vampires to adopt their lifestyle? Emmett blessedly cared not at all about these matters.

But, on the other hand, Edward tended to relax all the better around someone who could sympathize more firmly with his own concerns. He hoped Jasper and Alice would soon return. A few weeks was nothing to be separated, among their kind, but these weeks were strange ones.

At school, once their morning classes were over, Edward and Emmett joined not just Bella but a regular gaggle of human children for lunch. The two were hunting nightly, to make this kind of socializing (read: looming) easier, but sometimes Edward had to leave lunch early to reinforce himself for the longer block of Biology. He had not thought he would need to on this day, though.

The humans were still vaguely delighted at the interest implied by the brothers’ presence, though Jessica was the most specifically pleased—and, to Edward’s dismay, targetedly hopeful, her thoughts concerning him specifically much too much.

Angela was more eager for the seeming outcasts to find a proper welcome, which he found touching. Rare was the human who saw their isolation and sought to see it lifted for the vampires’ benefit. Sitting to his left, she was wondering what topic of conversation might engage them.

Mike was the least gratified and the most conflicted—he was jealous of the ease with which Emmett and Edward drew attention; annoyed by the equal ease with which they appeared to disregard the eyes always upon them; and, deep down (as the occasional half-thought indicated), eager himself to impress and befriend the Cullens. Of course, Edward knew, even more deeply buried was the instinctual response urging the boy to turn tail and run. Instinct made dislike easy.

Bella, eyes so often on him and his brother, was still a mystery in this regard. There was no sign he would become able to read her mind, but the weeks’ interactions had eased the discomfort of his deafness to her: her eyes, her posture, her hands—she tended to convey at least her most occupying thoughts through these media. This was often sufficient. Only when she dangerously fixated on either him or Emmett did he feel her mental silence like a solid wall.

He sat on the side of the table opposite her, as was the easiest place to keep watch. Dutifully, he and his brother forced the occasional small bites of pizza down their throats.

Her eyes were trained on her food, her brow furrowed as Mike and Jessica argued playfully about his performance at handball in gym the day before. The clearing of a throat behind her made her start, and Bella stood to make room for the late arrival—Lauren, who to Edward’s reluctant knowledge had been absorbed in fixing her makeup in the bathroom. He did not begrudge teenagers their interests. He did not recall himself having been particularly somber before the flu. But he was not a fan of picking up thoughts of such private locations. Further, he found himself put out at the girl’s entitled behavior at Bella’s expense.

_Not quite my business, I think._

Angela, he noticed, had watched the interaction as well. _Lauren…_ Her thought had all the flavor of a sigh of resignation.

Bella didn’t seem to mind. Still lost in thought, as she stepped to her right, as Jessica scooted closer to Mike—Edward’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but he found himself transfixed in dawning horror as Bella’s body dipped— _what was there to slip on?_ But she had—he found himself frozen. Time slowed. Emmett burst with indecision beside him—keep her from injury? Too many witnesses to make it across the table naturally and without _causing_ injury—he braced himself —Bella tried to grab the table, but her hands found only her tray, which skittered and flipped over, dumping her food onto her arms. She slid under the table, pivoted as she failed to meaningfully grasp it, knocking her head against the bench.

A split second passed. Edward felt a cautious relief—no smell of blood followed her fall. At last, the humans reacted. Immediately, by their own reckoning, but sluggishly by his. “Bella!” came Jessica’s voice, uncommonly shrill, from where she had jumped back from Bella’s flailing to stop her fall. He felt Emmett’s hand on his arm.

 _We need to leave._ His brother’s mind was uncommonly solemn.

Edward shot a questioning look at his brother.

“Are you okay?” Angela asked, standing and peering over the table.

_We need to leave **now**._

Bella groaned and pulled herself, slowly and with Jessica’s help, onto the bench. Even Lauren helped in her own way, moving Bella’s tray away and wiping at the tomato sauce and cheese on her sweater sleeves with a wet napkin. “This’ll stain,” she muttered with a _tsk_.

Emmett’s grip tightened on his arm.

Bella winced as she opened her mouth. “Just embarrathed.” A lisp? And then it hit him— “Think I bit my tongue.”

A low growl rose in his throat, unbidden, as the scent washed over him. _Fresh blood._ Her mouth was full of it—

She was wiping her tongue with a napkin, grimacing, and the _red_ made his throat constrict—his own mouth filled with venom—

 ** _No_** _, Edward._ His brother’s thoughts were distant. Irrelevant. He would drink her blood. There was no more resistance to be had. The liquid was too sweet, too _there_ —he tensed to lunge—cut the growl in his chest, before the humans noticed—

 _What’s up with Edward?_ Angela had noticed his change in demeanor. He would have to incapacitate her first, he mourned—

A sharp pain struck his arm as Emmett forcefully pulled him up and away as he stood, dragging him to the door with no words to the humans behind him.

It was all he could do to let himself be pulled, to imagine his brother tearing him apart to keep him from killing the girl or any others—

_If I can’t be good, I can at least be a coward._

As the cleaner air of the hall outside the cafeteria enveloped them, as his bloodlust cleared, he realized Emmett’s mind was blank with his own strained effort to control both of them. When it became clear that Edward would not struggle, Emmett loosened his hold, though he did not remove his hand. No humans were around, so they walked faster—faster than any human could—though they avoided running out of caution. As the distance between her bl—between the site of the incident and them increased, he heard Emmett draw in shaky, shallow breaths, carefully clearing the odor out of his system.

 _We’ll get the nurse or someone_. _That’ll be our cover for leaving._ _When we don’t come back…let ‘em just think we’re being our usual weird, jerk selves._

Edward nodded mutely. Perhaps his brother saw it, in the periphery of his vision. He didn’t approve the plan aloud. He couldn’t dare to breathe enough for it.

* * *

_Alice_

To Alice Cullen, time itself was visible, and fate was only a suggestion.

Her sight wasn’t all that good, really. It was just that everyone else was groping around entirely in the dark, and she had a little candle to light her way. She couldn’t see far, usually—not without risking a mighty headache. “Eye strain,” it might be called, from squinting too long into the darkest depths of the future. The past was more inscrutable still. Despite her efforts over the years, she could see nothing that had already happened. Save for those things from her own post-turn memory, of course.

On worse days, the mysteries of the past—her own human life included—depressed her. But on this day, she was in a great mood, if not a little nervous. Well, extremely nervous. Jasper stayed near at-hand and had offered to calm her, but she refused. These nerves weren’t hurting anything.

They were natural. The devious, malicious, _unpredictable_ Aro was about to visit her family, and she had to let it happen. This was the best way, really, that she could see. But for now any visions of him melted away and reformed like she was looking through a heat mirage. He was making no decisions, yet, that affected how the day would go. She could only see a vision of Esme and Carlisle talking with him, and then, he reached to take Esme’s hand—Alice saw his eyes close, like he was savoring the memories he gained—but then—the vision fizzled into hundreds of unlikely possibilities.

What did Aro see in Esme’s mind, that whatever happened next was so fuzzy? The fragments from weeks ago, when she’d been trying to find out how Edward should handle Bella, had taught Alice that whatever was about to happen, in the next days or months, it had direct consequence on the girl’s life.

She growled. If only she could _be_ there. But if Edward found out all she had seen, he’d want to leave, he’d want to keep the two from meeting, and that would be worse than useless. She’d looked hundreds of times. There was no way to convince Edward that this gambit was worth it. But it was. There had been two brief but striking visions in that possibility soup before Edward had paid much attention to her thoughts—she kept returning to them, like lucky tokens, running her mental fingers over them to polish them up. Making sure they were still waiting there for them all.

The first: Aro and Bella standing in sunlight, both glittering—such warmth and surreal tenderness, shared in a glance between them—but _more,_ the humans who stood around them, talking to them, _casually_ , an orange sky above them even though the sun was high above, unfamiliar and large buildings dotting the hilly landscape behind—

The second: Bella and Aro, hands clasped, floating, somehow, in nothing, surrounded by stars on all sides.

These two visions, they did change: in how old Bella looked, in either; in the former, in how many people greeted the two, the color of the sky, and the time of day; and in whether any sign of structure or other being (human or vampire) accompanied them in the endless space of the latter—

The first spoke of such optimism to Alice, with her kind being openly part of the world, that she could not now sacrifice a path that might lead to it. It pained her to be so certain that her brother would not see the benefit of this opportunity, this early on, and so—here they were, Jasper and Alice, camping far in the Canadian wilderness.

These thoughts floated through Alice’s head and dissolved as she lay, limbs tangled with Jasper’s, each facing the other, their eyes closed and breathing synchronized—breathing merely because it calmed. The wind buffeted the walls of the tent, a drone of white noise, muted by the snowdrifts around. Vampires could not sleep, but the habits born of humanity lingered for many, many years. She dipped her head forward, nuzzled his neck with her brow and nose. He responded with a soft hum and pulse of contentment. —The habit to seek comfort remained.

A sharp growl ruptured the peace, wrenched her eyes open— _Edward would_ —

Vision: Edward, crouched over Bella’s body, other bodies, inert, pale in fluorescence, _blood_ —

As the pseudo-dream cleared from her sight, there was Jasper’s face, eyes staring intently into her own, and his hands now holding the sides of her face. He did not vocalize the question he knew she knew he had.

Alice blinked, whirled away and sprang up, one hand taking one of Jasper’s. With her other hand as unsteady as a vampire’s could ever be, she pulled her phone out of the lineup of personal affects next to their nest of blankets and pillows. A blur of fingers over the buttons produced the economical

_Dont be w/ B at lunch_

which was sent, with all the alacrity satellites and radio waves could offer, to Edward—who, despite the cellular networks’ best, paltry efforts in the Canadian wilderness, would not receive it quite in time.

* * *

_Carlisle_

Aro, Master Aro of the Volturi himself, perhaps the most politically powerful member of their kind, stood at his front door. The silent guard Renata trailed a respectful few feet behind. “Hello, old friend.” He spread his hands and opened the palms skyward. Presenting himself. “Sorry for dropping in unannounced.” His grin indicated he was not.

“Hello, Aro.” Carlisle’s composure did not waver, though his mind blew into a frenzy. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He could hear Esme enter through the back. When they’d heard the two vampires approaching unannounced, they’d been uncertain of their identities and had split so that Esme could flank. Carlisle was relieved there was not likely to be any overt conflict at this time. It wasn’t Aro’s style.

The elder had many, many other ways to disturb the peace of their family if he desired. He reminded himself that Aro had never directly meant him or his family ill, that he had known, and he hoped not much had changed in that regard in the last several decades.

“Oh, I thought we might catch up.” The older vampire’s grin softened to a warm smile and his hands fell to his sides. “I’ve found myself curious about how you fare, as of late.”

 _A social visit?_ He was doubtful. While it was within the realm of possibility for Aro to travel halfway around the world merely to chat, it was extremely unlikely. Carlisle had thought the leader of the Volturi did not much travel these days, and rarely crossed an ocean when he did. He rather hoped this was merely a fancy of Aro’s, and that his proclivity to mostly ignore the Americas had not changed.

“Of course. Please, come in.” Carlisle stepped aside and gestured inward.

At this, the master vampire swept into the room as though his simple black suit was regalia and the trailing Renata was a full entourage.

Esme stood in the archway to the inner hall of the house, and Aro walked swiftly over, taking her hand with little warning to either her or Carlisle. “Esme, it is a pleasure to meet you at last.” Renata took position next to the front door.

“You as well, Master Aro.” Esme glanced nervously to Carlisle, who conveyed _All will be well_ in an expertly calming crinkling of his eyes.

Aro’s eyes fluttered shut. After a long moment, he smiled widely and dropped her hand from his. “A beautiful home. A lovely family. You are right to be proud, madame.” The words seemed to be in earnest, but both Esme and Carlisle noted a worrying restraint to his expression, as though something in Esme’s memories had disappointed him.

“And—I have been remiss—Carlisle, how have you been?” Aro turned and stretched a hand toward him. Carlisle had been wondering at Aro having not yet taken his own hand in greeting. Had he intended to forego it, if he had found Esme’s memories satisfactory? What, precisely, was Aro investigating, as investigating he seemed to be? _None of my children have broken the law, I am sure. Edward was doing so well with the girl._

Carlisle approached and clasped Aro’s hand as beckoned. “I have been well,” he answered verbally, before the strange but familiar sensation of Aro’s ability crept through his head. It was not intense. One could miss it entirely, if Aro bothered to disguise his intent, perhaps by covertly laying a hand on a person’s arm. His manner was occasionally exuberant enough to account for such friendly contact—he might discomfit the unwary, but they would have no cause to suspect the true happenings. Carlisle believed, however, there were few within their circles who did not know of Aro’s power already, and therefore Aro probably had long fallen out of any practice of secrecy.

Aro’s mouth quirked. “I am being awfully brazen, aren’t I? This is what I so enjoy about you, Carlisle—the honesty of your appraisals.” He dropped his hand. “Indeed, I _am_ investigating something. I hope your family may aid me, with some clues perhaps, but I have not had cause to suspect any of yours to need discipline.”

He waved a hand in the air, dismissing the idea, and paced a few steps. “Really—let me ‘cut to the chase,’” Aro said as he spun onto and leaned back on Carlisle’s couch, observing the furnishings and beings before him as though they were at his service. (They rather were.) His hand gestured to the available chairs, and Esme and Carlisle seated themselves. Esme took Carlisle’s hand, and he took comfort in the touch; Aro eyed the action with interest before he looked each in the eyes and smiled. “I have found myself wondering about certain propensities of our kind, and this has led me to considering with great interest what your aberrant lifestyle might truly be like.” He steepled his fingers. His face shifted to solemnity. “I’d like to try it.”

The two stared at him for many seconds.

Renata had visibly stiffened in the corner of Carlisle’s vision. He thought it likely she hadn’t known Aro’s purpose here—nor, likely, did any of the Volturi coven.

He laughed and brought his hands to his knees, straightening. “Yes, I thought this might be your response. Are you terribly opposed?”

Esme’s hand tightened on her mate’s. In human-mimicking habit, he took a deeper breath than needed to speak. Aro’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. Carlisle spoke. “We should…discuss the particulars, perhaps, but I am not opposed. Simply—surprised.” What could Carlisle ask, without risking his ire? “Might I ask…?”

Aro sighed. “I do not wish to discuss my reasons in detail, no. That’s quite a dull topic. Depressing, you could say. Surely, friend, you can help me regardless?”

Now Carlisle’s grip tightened on Esme’s hand. He wearily reflected that this double standard for privacy was just like Aro. “We can try. Your control is not lacking, of course. If you feel motivated to this end, there is no reason to think you’ll find it difficult.”

Aro stood suddenly, startling the pair before him. “Excellent! I knew I could rely on you. Are you able to host me for the duration, or shall we seek other arrangements?”

Carlisle and Esme shared a glanced. “Will Renata be…?” Carlisle began, looking to the guard. If he had his druthers, he could address the question to her directly, but he knew Aro would be the one to make the decision.

“Oh,” Aro muttered. He turned to his guard and observed her, consideringly, as she stood at attention. This display was familiar to Carlisle; Aro could be surprisingly _like_ forgetful for such a powerful vampire. After a moment, Aro nodded. “Renata, I shall leave it to you. I will be here for a while, and I trust the Cullens quite well. Your services are not necessary—” She opened her mouth to object. “—though you may stay, if you desire.” Her mouth closed. “If you _do_ stay, I must ask you to adopt the same unpalatable diet as practiced here.” He frowned apologetically, but then his lips quirked again. “‘When in Rome,’ as they say.” Renata stared into the middle distance, nose and mouth scrunched sourly—the most animated Carlisle had seen her expression in their entire acquaintance.

She lifted her face toward Aro. “I’ll stay.”

“Oh, good! I will be interested to hear how you find this experience yourself, my dear.”

She nodded mutely, some residual displeasure in her brow.

Carlisle met Esme’s eyes once more. He dipped his head, but left his eyebrows raised in question. _The decision is yours. I will ensure it goes well, either way._ He wished the thoughts could reach her; she seemed to understand anyway. The set of her mouth was reluctant, but she smoothed it into a polite smile. “We only have one designated guest room—however, there is a small room besides that may suit. We may all go look at them, and you can determine for yourself if they will be comfortable enough…”

“I expect they’ll work wonderfully.” He hummed. “I will need to return to Volterra in, oh—” He shrugged. “Not too long, I’m sure. I’m sure they will suit. —Ah, but a tour of the house would be most welcome.” He raised a hand, beckoning. “Renata.”

She appeared at his side.

Aro bowed shallowly at the waist and lifted a hand forward, gesturing vaguely to the house overall. “Lead the way, my friends.”

* * *

_Edward_

_I could have killed her._

Edward had not realized how he had begun to discount the possibility, how he had started to believe himself incapable of it—until the budding illusion was shattered, and decades of control were most thoroughly decimated in a moment.

After they had sent the nurse to the cafeteria—saying that Bella had twisted her ankle, too, by way of explaining why she herself had not simply come to the nurse’s office—the pair of brothers had simply gone home. That was enough of humanity for one day, thanks, and Carlisle could smooth it over later, if their absences were too questioned.

Edward drove. It would help him clear his thoughts. Emmett was a ball of irritation beside him.

_Next time I say we need to leave, **listen to me.**_

He was right. Edward should have complied first and asked questions later. “I will.”

_And don’t get all sulky about this._

He leveled a stare at Emmett. The larger vampire did not back down, however. His frustration still colored every one of his thoughts, and he really _wanted_ to wrestle Edward to the ground to express this, but he had the awareness to realize, as he himself thought it: _That would only make you beat **yourself** up even more._

Similarly, the mix of scolding and concern from his most affable sibling only made the guilt heavier in his chest, but he nodded once and returned his eyes to the road.

As they pulled around the house to the garage, they were both surprised to see an unfamiliar black car in the front drive.

_Whose is it?_

“I haven’t a clue.” Edward, tired, thought to himself: _What now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Should I tag any non-canonical side pairings that may pop up later?  
> \- They have bench seating in the cafeteria because I see no reason *not* to make this minor and arbitrary change from any canon (that I can recall). ;D  
> \- me, chanting to self: i do what i want i do what i want i do what i want  
> \- me, in a monotone that calls to mind an ancient chorus of immortals: BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE RIDE


	4. Chapter 4

_Bella_

The school nurse was Ms. Hammond, a tired-looking, rather young woman who had too many far-flung semi-rural schools in her rotation. She gave Bella a generous amount of gauze, to be held to her tongue until the bleeding stopped, and a bag of ice, to be held against her mouth and replaced between classes, and sent her on her way—with a note for gym that afternoon, of course.

A bitten tongue was far from the worst injury her clumsiness had earned her. She was grateful, given the awkwardness of her fall, that she hadn’t sprained her ankle in a bad landing, or gotten a concussion when she hit her head. Twisting around the table had saved her any significant bruising—sliding forward on the linoleum had kept her from hitting any part of the table too solidly, and if she hadn’t been eating, perhaps she wouldn’t have even bitten her tongue…

An insignificant accident, by her own history. Still it was enough for her inexplicable followers—was there a better word for Mike, and for Eric, who was now approaching her nearly as often as Mike did?—to ask her, both of them, if she was alright, each time they saw her, for the rest of the day.

Angela and Jessica—friends, not followers—left her alone about it. She was grateful, even if Jessica’s silence on the matter was due to just _not caring_ , now that whole hours had passed since. Angela met her eyes with a sympathetic pursing of her lips when Mike asked her (for approximately the fourth time) if she was okay in Biology, and Bella felt again the value of the kind girl’s understanding. It didn’t get rid of the nuisance of being the center of attention, but it did make her feel less awkward about it.

Notably, the Cullens were not included in those conversationally concerned, or not, with her health. They were absent the rest of the day. The nurse, when she had arrived unexpectedly at the cafeteria to see to Bella, had said the two told her about Bella’s fall. The woman had thought Bella’s ankle was twisted. Which was _baffling_. Had the brothers misunderstood the nature of Bella’s injury, or had they lied?

She knew she shouldn’t assume the latter.

She really wanted to assume the latter.

Not because she liked the idea—it was a mildly alarming one—but because it felt right. In all of the confusing oddness that surrounded the Cullen-and-Hale family, miscellaneous lies to authority figures just— _fit_. And that was what was alarming.

 _Am I, Bella Swan, a budding conspiracy theorist?_ She disdained the idea, but she couldn’t shake the impression that the group was hiding something. Her thoughts continued to drift as Mr. Banner lectured. They called up the list she had typed and then deleted. She was tempted to create it again, only this time with words on their behavior today (and also actually saving it). Their disappearance might’ve been totally coincidental. But, in case it wasn’t, shouldn’t she have record of it?

_How many coincidences are needed to become correlation?_

That evening, Charlie expressed a fatherly concern for her well-being after the story of her fall—and no small amount of amusement at the corresponding story of her schoolmates’ own concern.

“To be young,” he said wistfully over their dinner of baked chicken and green beans. She frowned at him, which seemed to amuse even more. He chuckled as he cut into his chicken.

Later that evening, she did type up the list again. There was no harm to it, surely.

* * *

_Edward_

“Master Aro,” Edward greeted the elder vampire in a tight voice. Emmett beside him was uncomfortable at the prospect of dealing with someone of status. At a loss, he echoed Edward’s greeting.

“Good day, Edward. And…you’re Emmett, of course.” Aro grinned, teeth bright in the living room’s soft lighting. The smile was too sharp to be disarming; a human would flee. “Pleasure to see you both.” His eyes lingered on Edward with what the latter found to be a predatory glint. He held back on scowling in return. Barely. Aro would know—already knew—how he felt, in any case, but would appreciate his efforts at outward…tolerance, if not congeniality. And he could little afford to do else but what Aro would appreciate, with the king sitting in his very living room.

He stood and stretched a hand toward Edward, beckoning him over. Carlisle remained seated, thoughts and expression placid. Esme and Rosalie were nowhere to be seen, Aro’s thoughts were vague (as he tended to be around Edward), and his father’s were only concerned with how Edward and Aro would interact, so Edward could not yet ascertain _why_ this member of the triumvirate was _here_.

Reluctantly, he walked over and took Aro’s hand.

Today would be unlikely to grow any more eventful.

At least there was that hope.

As his hand was uncomfortably caught in the elder’s, his phone vibrated. He had received a message earlier—during the incident—but hadn’t managed to check it yet. Hopefully, if it was Alice with anything important, she had texted them all...

Aro chuckled. Which grew into a bout of full laughter. “Oh, Edward, seeing—and _hearing_ —the world through your perspective is always a treat.” He sat back down, stroked his chin with his fingers, hummed. “What an intriguing situation you find yourself in. That one of _you_ should find _la tua cantante_ , and that further she should be immune to your telepathy...” Aro clasped his hands and stood again, animated by a sudden restlessness. “You must introduce her to me; I must meet her.”

Edward was sure, were it possible, he would have paled. He knew how sharply the elder’s desires could shift without warning. Alice’s vision of Bella, bloodless…

As the image roiled in his mind, he reflected that something of a poker face was perhaps a silver lining of their condition. His disgust shouldn’t be obvious. “Why do you want to bother with a human, Master Aro?”

Aro’s laughter was softer this time. Edward’s query was answered by Carlisle’s thoughts, and the younger vampire turned to his sire in shock before facing the eldest again. _He wants to abstain from human blood? To interact with humans?_ Aro nodded, as though he had heard Edward’s incredulity directly—or perhaps the younger’s dropped jaw was enough to make his surprise clear.

“I’m sure you understand the whys well enough.” _Not really,_ Edward thought, but Aro’s gaze grew distant and his thoughts oddly muddled to Edward’s hearing before an earnest _Alas!_ brought the vampire back to the moment. The temporary chaos of Aro’s thoughts had been like Alice’s bursts of clairvoyance—a side effect of Aro’s power Edward had not noticed before nor heard tell of. Perhaps none besides Aro and now him knew about it. “I’m sure, young friend, you can gauge me to be as sincere as ever in this, my curiosity of your odd ways.” The red of his eyes glittered. “You need not worry on how that might not indicate any _great_ deal of sincerity—even if I bore of this experiment, I doubt your family will be at all to blame, and I shouldn’t hold you responsible. I also doubt that she will smell so appetizing to me that I would carelessly fulfill your Alice’s more fearful visions.” His thoughts continued beyond that, and Edward went rigid. _She is so peculiar—I will have her one of us. She simply mustn’t die. It would be a shame._ “So you must introduce her to me—won’t you?”

_I believe he can be trusted not to harm her, Edward._

Edward wanted to sigh, rub his face, run his hands through his hair, pace and feverishly think up any way out of this—he settled for clenching his fists. “Very well.”

 _Y’wanna fight him?_ Emmett’s question was purely curious in tone, neither judgmental nor anticipatory.

Edward very much did not. He only wished him away. The shift in Aro’s smile, the narrowing of his frankly evil eyes, indicated that the elder knew precisely how Edward felt about this request—and either didn’t care, or indeed enjoyed the reluctance of his acquiescence.

Aro, Edward intuited, was likely the reason Alice could see nothing for Bella besides death or turning. He could not see all the paths to it, not to account for all the ways Alice thought Bella might die, but the hunch was strong. Sickly, Edward considered that he might even have convinced himself that killing her was better than having her turned at Aro’s interest—would she be swayed to their monstrous ways? Newborns were so volatile. He thought of the quiet girl he had come to know and grew sicker still. His self-recrimination over the lapse earlier made the thought of her all the more painful, and perhaps made him more inclined to think her especially _innocent_ , _undeserving_ , _pure,_ more ardently than he would have, had he been remembering that she was fully human—flaws and all—and that not one of them really deserved to be driven to bloodlust regardless of “innocence” (but he was unaware of the way his self-loathing might twist his view of reality, of self and others, as so many often are).

Why should this king have chosen now to be curious about their ways? He felt the muscle tic along his jaw as he wondered at it. Could Bella have been left in peace if Aro’s curiosity toward their lifestyle had been delayed? He knew these questions to be useless. Even Alice couldn’t answer them now.

 _This is what she had seen._ Aro’s presence recalled to him the many flashes of the Volturi that had swirled in that storm of fragmentary possibilities Alice had seen, before Alice and Edward had decided on an order to things. The de facto leader himself had been in the visions more than Caius and Marcus, hadn’t he? Dark suspicions lurked in the back of Edward’s mind. But, so used to tuning out the thoughts of others, Edward was even better at ignoring his own when he wanted.

Aro had turned from Edward, having made his wishes clear, and presented a more affable visage to Carlisle. They were discussing music, and seemingly had been before Edward and Emmett had returned, so suddenly did Aro segue into an account of a performance of _Carmina Burana_ he had seen. Either he was continuing the subject, or he had grown more erratic in the decades since they’d last met, to abruptly opine on a rendition of _O Fortuna_. Which…was certainly possible.

Edward and Emmett left them to it, passing out of the living room and into the central hall.

They looked at each other in unhappy commiseration.

_This sucks. Wonder where Rose is?_

Edward shrugged.

_Wanna go hunting?_

_No_ , he thought. But he nodded, and off they ran, out of the house and deep into the woods. Edward hunted more often these days, and so they had to range far afield to avoid significant, disproportionate impact on wildlife. They did not return until well after midnight.

When he retired to his room for some semblance of solitude—needed more than ever, now that the common areas could contain Aro at any time—Edward finally checked his phone. Two messages met him, both from Alice:

_Dont be w/ B at lunch_

Too late for that, he thought sardonically.

_I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about him. Jasper and I will be back soon. After A meets B, probably._

Effecting Aro’s desired reality, “A meets B,” was a task that now lay upon Edward’s shoulders, and he could think of no option but to carry it out. If he did not bring Bella before this _dittatore_ , the consequences for his family—well. Suffice it to say, he wanted to believe in Carlisle’s trust that this wouldn’t end in a disaster, but the alternatives tormented him with their very possibility. He texted Alice his concerns, assuming from her last message that she would need no explanation. Hopefully she could at least guide him away from any especially likely dangers, as she had these weeks he stayed near Bella.

 _Why did she need to keep Aro’s visit from me? What could the risk have been of my_ not _being caught unaware by it?_ He frowned and looked out the window, over the misty, early-hours darkness of the forest around. _Or what was **worth** keeping it from me?_

He tossed his phone onto the loveseat and stood in the middle of his darkened room for a long and silent while, his thoughts circling him like carrion birds.

* * *

_Bella_

The Cullens were back the next day as though nothing had happened. _Really_ , Bella thought, _nothing had_. She sighed. _Now if only I could believe it…_

Edward pulled her aside before lunch. Metaphorically, that is—he had always been respectful of her personal space, not prone to the crowding that Mike tended toward, despite Edward’s own tendency to otherwise be around her too much. In fact, his respectfulness was kind of excessive—sometimes he stood too far away for easy conversation, but then he grew visibly uncomfortable if she tried to close the distance while they talked…

This time he was standing practically a normal distance from her, however, and Bella realized in her impromptu analysis that she had missed his question. “Sorry, what was that?”

He frowned, very briefly and very subtly, but she did see it. Was it a difficult question to ask?

“Would you come to our house for dinner tonight?”

 _What’s difficult about_ that _question? Also…why?_ She looked at him blankly for a long moment, trying to work out either his motivation or a polite way to ask after it.

Other students chattered as they streamed into the cafeteria behind him.

Eventually, he seemed to pick up the social cue that he should give a reason. “My sister Rosalie and my mother are back in town, and they want to make sure you’re settling in okay…”

If her expression read as thoroughly unconvinced, she could do nothing to prevent it. Renée teasing her for a lack of a poker face sprang to mind. “I’ve been here for a while now...”

Edward didn’t seem to know how to respond. Then he exhaled in a way that sounded suspiciously like “ah-ha.” “It’s not often that Emmett and I make friends. My parents are curious about you.”

Did she want to push him to make up a third excuse, or should she just reject him now? “Friends” was a generous way to describe Emmett and Edward’s relationship to her. Rapport was lacking. They were just _around_ a lot. “I’m sorry, but tonight…”

“Please,” he interrupted. His tone was sort of desperate, which did not further incline her to accept in the least. “It’s just…” He looked away. It could have been out of reluctance for what he was about to say—it could also have been a way to buy time to invent a better reason. She couldn’t say. “It’s just, Esme, my mother, really likes hosting guests, but she hardly ever gets to—we don’t,” he hesitated, “we don’t make friends very easily, and with our grandmother’s death, I just think it would…”

Well. Now she felt kind of like a jerk. At least she hadn’t voiced any of her suspicions out loud. “Oh. Um. I see. Yeah, if…if it’s a thing you’re doing for your mom, I guess I can come over…does it have to be tonight? It’s just, you know, short notice.”

He winced. “We’re having this dinner tonight, with some relatives visiting before they return home, and I know there’ll be enough extra food for a surprise guest, but another night—”

Bella sighed. “Another night, you might just be inconveniencing her. I understand. Are you sure she’s cool with a surprise guest…? And, like, it sounds like your family’s going through a hard time, are you sure…? I mean, I’m basically a stranger…”

“It’s fine.” His eyes grew distant and his tone a little flat as he said, “It’s just the kind of thing we need right now. A friendly guest will be…fun.”

She still had some vague uncertainty about this, and she felt bad leaving Charlie to fend for his own suddenly, but…she couldn’t really refuse after hearing the truth (or, what seemed to be the truth), could she? She took a moment to work out the logistics mentally—and to resolve a sudden pang of sympathy.

They really didn’t seem to have any friends. It probably _was_ a worry to their parents that their children were all so insular. Maybe this _would_ provide them some respite in their grief…

“Alright.”

Edward smiled. Rather. It was a weak one, almost like he was covering a grimace. “You’ll do it?”

She swallowed another sigh, realizing she’d just agreed to a social engagement with a bunch of people she barely knew or knew not at all. Joy. “Yeah. What’s your address? What time should I be there?”

“Oh, um…” He hesitated. “The directions are tricky, actually. How about I pick you up? At six? You’ll be back home by ten, I’m sure.”

She was quite resigned at this point. _Hope I don’t end up murdered in the woods._ “Okay. Sure.” She recited her address.

Edward’s smile widened, though it still didn’t strike her as wholly sincere. _Maybe talking about his dead grandmother made him_ sad _, Bella_ , she chided herself. “Thank you, Bella. This means a lot to me.”

She smiled (weakly), nodded (once), and turned away (rapidly.) As she continued into the cafeteria at last, she did her absolute best to ignore the part of her that was excited at the opportunity to investigate. _And how exactly, dear self, do you intend to work a death in the family into your little mystery?_ Guilt and self-recrimination did not settle in her stomach any better than the school meatloaf she made herself eat (taking special care with her injured tongue).

Later, mind wandering in class, bad feelings absent with the lack of self-reflection, her thoughts did idly turn over what this event might mean for her model of their family. _If Rosalie and Esme are back in town after the funeral and so on, why aren’t Jasper and Alice?_ She sought for a hypothesis, but as the act of searching made her realize what she was considering, she promptly refocused on the Biology quiz in front of her. If these thoughts were unnecessary _and_ made her feel bad—she decided, firmly—she simply wouldn’t think them.

* * *

_Aro_

It would be some days, at least, before he would be compelled to hunt, leaving Aro to lurk—for he _was_ , wasn’t he? Lurking?—about the house owned by the Olympians. _No_ , he corrected himself. _Their **home**. How dear of them._ He could understand a little the appeal to their lifestyle, then—lacking the influence of his own coven, the ability to settle somewhere for a while was a noted merit of their diet. For those who might seek that.

He had never, particularly. As he lounged on the sofa provided him (distressingly minimalistic in design, as was most of their furniture), he reflected that he had only cared much to hold the castle in Volterra because it was a symbol of their status and exercise in power over others, vampire or human. But they had resided there some time now, and even with the occasional trips and rotations to other holdings, he realized that he had grown used to having a set abode. This attachment discomfited him. But the logistics, in material terms, were so much simpler than wandering…

A flash of pale skin, a slight hand stretched toward him—and as his vision cleared of the image, he knew he could not fool himself. His desires were not so practical, nor rational. _What would you think of my home, dear one?_ He cringed and sat up fully.

 _Really—must I lie around and daydream?_ Train of thought chastised, it drifted to the immediate: the occupants of the house.

Esme had disappointed him. In those murky, human memories of her life pre-change, she had not felt the bond as Carlisle had in _his_ memories of meeting her. Further, _Carlisle_ had not felt the bond so clearly and strongly as he ought to have, initially, though Aro doubted the younger vampire was aware of this. Aro, after all, had a uniquely broad perspective of such experiences. In the collected memories he searched, he realized vampire-vampire bondmate meetings always produced a most obvious immediate connection. And now that he had the Cullens’ memories to serve as touchstones in his seeking, he realized that he had met vampires who might have bonded to humans, if only they had been more aware of what was before them—flashes of memory danced through his head—there, that one, a Grecian Aro had met when he was quite young, if she had not been so hungry, she might have realized the stranger she felt unwilling to drink from called to her in another way entirely, and in the haze of seeking sustenance she never thought of that pretty human again. Or there, a reticent vampire who had stalked the Silk Road, whom Aro had met in Constantinople—and it was so subtle, the draw—one silhouette among the caravan trail on the hillock to his west caught his eye, but he was not especially thirsty and so had resolved to avoid humanity for a time. And so many more than that. Countless chances had been presented to members of his kind, some even multiple times, but either fate or circumstance had conspired against it.

 _Perhaps it is fortunate to avoid a human mate, in any case,_ he thought not for the first time in the last few days. Carlisle hadn’t noticed that, however drawn he was to Esme when first they met, the connection he felt grew with their later meeting. Or, rather, if Carlisle noticed the increase in his “affection” toward her, he had failed to recognize the significance of such a change. It was analogous, thought Aro half-amused and half-disdainful, to what some humans these days would call falling in love.

Vampires, left to their own devices, did not do that. He had many more and much clearer memories of fully vampiric bonding on hand to know. Mates might experience shallow alterations in their regard to each other—the squabbles and daily joys of any social relationship (and which some element of his being hungered for, though he quickly wiped that notion away)—they might deepen their knowledge of each other and grow more accustomed to the practical rhythm of the other’s habits—but the dare-he-call-it- _metaphysical_ nature of the bond endured, unchanging, from initial meeting onward. They would be no more or less drawn together or entangled from that moment on.

—and Esme had hardly felt a thing, comparatively, as best as he could tell through the fog that enveloped human memory. She had found Carlisle attractive, yes—had felt drawn to him—but it simply didn’t have the intensity that even Carlisle had felt toward her. Not when she was human.

Aro could tell the two were likely fully bonded _now_ , though without Marcus at hand he couldn’t be really certain. —he was confident enough in it, anyway. The memories each had of their lives since her change positively dripped with such bond-like feeling. Something dark slid through him, but he did not want to grant the feeling any shameful name like “envy” at this time. He could stand to be shameful in, oh, an hour or two, and even more to indulge and daydream all he liked of the figure that haunted him.

Some conclusion from all of this discovery was that if he found a human mate, the pull might be subtle, and he should keep that in mind. Further, the human might not find him much more than, say, passably charming, handsome, witty, or any other mundanely pleasant traits he could manifest. What was more, they would each have some choice in matters, which on one hand pleased him (feeling some measure of control return) and the other unsettled him (a mere human could decide _against_ him).

He laid back once more. _Perhaps they will be a vampire from the start. There are many I haven’t met, in this world—I_ ought _to travel more, then, to South America, to Africa, to Asia, even to Australia—oh, might that cause some territorial issues? I can be diplomatic. An ambassador. Or perhaps silent, a nameless traveller below the notice of others of my kind…_

So his thoughts drifted again, the time passed idly as he waited to be thirsty enough to hunt wretchedly nonhuman animals—or for Edward to bring him an interesting diversion.

* * *

_Bella_

In the house in Phoenix, Renée and Bella had had a highly sophisticated system to keep each other abreast of their activities: a bulletin board. It was mounted in the front hall, in easy sight of the door and over the coffee table that Renée was forbidden to leave her purse and keys else but upon when she came in. Bella had always been fastidious in posting her schedule on the board. Renée had been more impressionistic in her notes, but notes she had still left, often by crossing through the lettering on existing stickies and memo pages and squeezing new words in the margins (sometimes crossing multiple papers as needed, with arrows to point the way between the connected pages.)

Charlie’s house didn’t have a bulletin board. They hadn’t needed it. Bella’s routines had never been complicated—Renée was just forgetful—and Charlie had even simpler habits than Bella. They’d eaten dinner together every night that Charlie hadn’t worked late since Bella had moved in. This would be the first time _she_ missed dinner.

Bella affixed a folded piece of notebook paper to the fridge with a magnet advertising a local electrician. In cheap, spotty blue ink she wrote: “Eating at the Cullens’. Call it my good deed for the week. Will explain when I get home. Eat the leftovers without me!” The last statement, she underlined. Twice. She suspected too many of his meals prior to her arrival had been TV dinners. She didn’t like to think about why a perfectly competent cook like Charlie would have preferred unpalatable frozen fare when home-cooked dinners could be eaten while watching TV too.

It wasn’t guilt that made her sign the note “Love, Bella,” but it was absolutely guilt that made her write “EAT REAL FOOD” on another torn-out page and place it just so under the foil-covered casserole dish. Maybe if she left enough notes, he’d hardly notice she was gone.

 _Stop being silly, Bella_. _This was bound to happen sometime._ Heck, she’d be leaving for college in not-too-long. An image of the living room and kitchen covered with filially pious notebook pages, to make up for her absence upon leaving for adulthood, tickled her as she wandered upstairs to unwind before Edward showed up.

* * *

A paltry bit of homework, a lot of mindful breathing and non-thoughts about dinner, and about two hours later, the expected knock sounded at the front door. “Hi, Edward,” she said as she stepped outside. “Oh, and Rosalie.”

Rosalie Hale smiled but her gaze shifted so quickly away that Bella couldn’t mistake her boredom. _Why’d she even come?_ The modelesque woman seemed reluctant to even step under the awning and was standing well away from Edward as he greeted Bella.

“Are you ready to go?” His tone and expression did not contain even the show of polite nicety that Rosalie had offered. He seemed…somber.

“Um, sure.” Lacking a purse, as her main non-home location was school and she felt it redundant to split her daily items across multiple bags, Bella slung her backpack over one shoulder. At least she’d left the textbooks in her room, but she felt self-conscious—she’d changed since school, into a sweater (always—it was always too cold in Forks for her) and corduroys, something a little more together than what she’d worn to school. But not dressing up, no. Looking at the burnt sienna turtleneck that Edward wore—it looked so soft she wished she could touch it—and the casual but sophisticated long-sleeved charcoal dress that Rosalie had on, Bella fought the urge to beg off a moment to go change again. Instead, she entered the oddly practical Volvo through the door Edward held open for her, settled her backpack by her legs, and buckled her seatbelt.

She didn’t really have clothes that toed the line between “dressy” and “casual” like theirs, anyway. _Subtle displays of wealth? Or are they, or someone in their family, just interested in fashion?_ She thought of the list on her computer, but pushed the speculation away as disrespectful, given the cause of her visit. _Of course at least one of them likes fashion. Big family, well off..._

The silence in the car was oppressive. _Oh god, please don’t let the whole evening be like this._

“I hope Edward and Emmett haven’t been a nuisance while we were away,” Rosalie said from the passenger seat, her amber eyes flashing to Bella in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, no.” Bella pressed her palms, fingers splayed, against the seat below her. “They’ve been around a lot—I mean I’ve been seeing more of them lately—but they’re not a nuisance, no.” Her mouth snapped shut. _Try not to babble._

“That’s good.” Rosalie did sound perhaps a little relieved, and the effect of even a hint of positive emotion in her voice made it all the more sonorous. “The boys in the family can be quite rowdy. Though they’re usually well-behaved at school, so I’d hope nothing they may have done bothered you.” Was it weird that Rosalie talked about them like they were children? _No_ , Bella decided, thinking of Emmett’s jokes and Edward’s bouts of petulance. _It makes perfect sense._

Bella did not miss the turning of Edward’s head, the look he shot his sister in profile, but she did not know what it meant. She hesitated. “Well, actually…” She felt both teenagers’ attention on her—Edward’s head quirked to listen, Rosalie’s gaze once more in the mirror—and fell silent.

“What happened, Bella?” Rosalie’s voice was so soft, gentle, uncharacteristically so—but maybe the woman was nicer than Bella had thought. She inhaled, gathering breath to speak, and caught a whiff of sweet perfume. Rosalie even had good taste in scents, it seemed. She felt safe, and the answer coaxed fell from her lips as a question that she hadn’t quite meant to ask. She’d meant to be less direct, right? That approach didn’t seem to matter now.

“Edward, why’d you tell the nurse I’d hurt my ankle, when I fell in the cafeteria?”

Rosalie looked to Edward, a faint confusion in her brow. Smoothly, he answered, “Is that what she said? I don’t really remember now, but maybe Emmett had thought so and said something?”

 _Too smoothly?_ Conspiracy-brain itched. _Rehearsed?_

 _Of course not,_ she told herself. “Oh, I see. I was just curious.”

Edward smiled at her in the mirror, his gaze taking on that intensely _searching_ quality it sometimes did. “Feel free to ask us anything you’re curious about.”

“Alright, thanks.” Her fingers relaxed against the upholstery. This wouldn’t be such a dreadful evening. “Who all will be there tonight?”

“Ah, yes,” Edward murmured, his eyes fixed on the road. “Let’s see. Alice and Jasper aren’t back in town yet, but the rest of us are in—so Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, Carlisle, and I will be there. And our relatives visiting from Italy, Aro and Renata.”

“Italy? How are you related, again?”

The look Edward shot her was complex—amusement and something else lingered in his expression. “I hadn’t said.”

Rosalie cleared her throat. “I’m getting a bit too warm. Excuse me, Bella.” Her window inched down with a quiet _whirrr_. The cool air, as it drifted into the backseat, was refreshing, and Bella felt her head clear. She hadn’t noticed until now, but the drive had been making her sleepy. _Gosh, dozing off would have been embarrassing._ “Anyway,” Rosalie continued, “our Italian relatives are from Carlisle’s side of the family. Big, but distant. Only Carlisle, Edward, and Alice have actually met any of them before.”

Then this wasn’t the intimate gathering she’d feared she would be intruding on, but still she felt less comfortable with the idea of this dinner than she had moments ago. She supposed the list of names made it feel more real, and imminent. _Why’d only Edward and Alice meet them?_ But this question didn’t slip free as the others had. “I see,” was her only reply. She turned her head and looked out the window at the silhouettes and night-darkened figures of trees blurring by. There were no lights along the roads this far from the little town proper of Forks. When she was younger, summer fishing trips with Charlie started well before dawn, and she would get scared looking out at the dim woods. Her imagination conjured all sorts of strange forms in the shadows. Now, even if some part of her dreamed up rough human shapes in the tree line, she knew there was nothing really there, and nothing to be afraid of. _Just like this silly Cullen mystery._

The drive passed in a silence minutely less awkward than before, and at last they were pulling up to and around probably the fanciest, most Modern (capital _M_ ) house that Bella had ever visited.

Edward led the way through a garage that contained more vehicles than Bella thought was reasonable to own (this would be going in her notes), and Rosalie followed behind her. As they entered the house, delicious smells enveloped her—food that startled a growl from her stomach, a lingering perfume similar to what she’d caught in the car, and a generically clean smell that reminded her of the first couple weeks at any house or apartment she and Renée had ever moved to—as though the place were not very _lived in_ yet, despite the family having been in Forks for—a couple years at least, right?

Rosalie disappeared as Edward took Bella through a hallway to the living room, where two more haunted-Victorian members of the family sat on a sofa. They looked older than the Cullens and Hales she knew, but barely—were they Aro and Renata? She glanced to Edward, who gave an attempt at what might’ve been a reassuring smile if performed more competently.

“Bella, please meet my mother and father, Esme and Carlisle Cullen.” He turned to the shockingly young parents. “This is Bella, our friend from school.”

They both stood. Esme took a step toward Bella and smiled, eyes warm and gentle, hands clasped in front of her. “It’s good to meet you Bella. I’ll admit I was surprised when Edward had told me he’d invited you to dinner, but I’m glad you could come. Thank you for putting up with my sons.”

“Oh, it’s, um. It’s no problem.” She felt her face warm. She didn’t have a lot of experience meeting friends’ parents. None, in fact, not since elementary school. “Thanks for having me.”

“It’s our pleasure, Bella.” Carlisle’s tone was nearly as warm and quite serene. “Your father has always been welcoming to us. Someday we should have you both over for dinner, when things here have calmed down a bit.”

Bella, more tongue-tied than ever, settled for an eager nod. _Why are they so nice? Is this normal? Is this what friend-parents are usually like?_

Esme laid a hand on Carlisle’s arm. Bella felt vaguely like an intruder at noticing the tender look that passed between them. She wasn’t really used to seeing a happy marriage in action, and theirs did seem to be. “Dinner will be ready soon. Dear, perhaps you could keep Bella company? While Edward tells the others?”

“Certainly.” Carlisle swept a hand toward a chair—she sat promptly—and retook his perch on the sofa. He laced his fingers together in his lap. She glanced around; Edward and Esme both were already out of sight.

“Now…if you’re much like your father, I expect joining a strange family’s dinner on short notice is far from how you’d wanted to spend your evening.” His voice was sympathetic, with a touch of mirth. The whole family could have been radio stars. That wasn’t really a thing anymore, though; cinematic narrators, then. Commercial spokespeople. Actually, they could have made money reading the dictionary aloud, that’s how nice their voices were. _Focus, Bella._

“Well…kind of,” Bella admitted softly. _Is that too honest?_ “I don’t mind. I mean, I’m sure it’ll be, um, enjoyable.”

Carlisle chuckled. “I appreciate that. Thank you for indulging Edward in this. His heart is in the right place.”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure.” Her back was starting to hurt a little. She was sitting too straight, wasn’t she? Unnaturally so. She couldn’t seem to figure out how to relax the muscles into a position more comfortable. And the awkward silence had returned.

It hadn’t even started yet, and she knew this dinner was going to take forever.

Carlisle managed to draw her into a conversation regarding her classes, and having something familiar to talk about did ease her nerves until the rest of the family showed up. First were Emmett and Rosalie—neither set her much more on edge, thankfully, but it was still “more people,” which was not her favorite thing. Not long after they descended the stairs, Esme poked her head through the hall doorway to tell them dinner was on the table. Bella followed the others through the hall and into a room that smelled like heaven—with a long dining table, arrayed with a multitude of dishes, that reminded her of television shows. The whole scene was terribly bourgeois, in fact. She’d never even been in a house that had a separate dining room before.

“We usually don’t eat in here,” Esme shared with a trace of bashful pride, “but I got carried away while cooking, and Carlisle suggested it would make the meal even better to treat it as something of an event.”

Bella nodded and smiled. “I think that’s what this is, yeah.”

Esme smiled at her. She seemed genuinely pleased, as though Bella had managed some actual praise instead of a clumsy vaguery.

Edward and the two unmet relatives were already there and seated. They all stood when the rest entered, but on Edward’s part the motion was halting. He made an odd noise, a strangled gasp, and several of the family turned their heads to him in eerie concert—his expression was pained (as it, Bella noted wryly, so often was)—and he stared at one of the mystery relatives as though the pale man with long dark hair were responsible for his agony. Though bemused, Bella reflected that she had been on the receiving end of such a stare from Edward before and could sympathize. The man, however, merely looked at her, and seemed to pay Edward’s discomfort no mind.

“Bella,” Esme spoke, even as she continued to look at Edward, “these are Carlisle’s relatives from Italy.” She gestured to each with an up-turned palm. “Renata,” she assigned the black-haired woman, who, blank-faced, merely nodded at her before resuming a side-eye at Edward, “and Aro.”

The man so named was very still, save for a slight tilt of his head when Bella spoke: “It’s nice to meet you both.” Bella appreciated the existence of rote words for moments like this, especially with everyone else acting like they’d seen a ghost (named Edward). Even if, as it turned out, neither Renata nor Aro were going to bother to offer words in return.

Aro was the first to move, sinking to sit again at the table. All others followed, sorting themselves into the chairs with an efficiency that awed Bella—she found herself sitting between Carlisle and Rosalie, opposite Renata, with hardly an idea of how it happened—and noticed Edward was yet standing, somehow dumbstruck, definitely pained, to Aro’s immediate right. Aro looked up at the younger man with an expression that Bella couldn’t read.

“Edward, are you alright?” Carlisle asked.

Edward whipped toward him; Bella flinched at the suddenness of the action. His mouth opened, then closed. His eyes slid shut. All at once, he deflated and fell into the chair behind him. He didn’t answer, but the family seemed to take his sitting as the cue for dinner to begin. Murmured requests to pass the spinach, the bread, the _veal_ ( **so** bourgeois) filled the space where Edward’s response might have gone, and the clinking of cutlery rose up where any others might have pressed him further on the matter. The friendly atmosphere that Rosalie, Esme, and Carlisle had nurtured had become tenuous. _I want to go home._

Edward stared down at his plate, which Emmett stretched across the table to fill with servings of every dish Esme had readied. “Eat up, bro.” The younger scowled disproportionately in return, and at that Bella could admit to some concern for her sorta-friend. What the heck was going on with this family?

 _Oh, you know, grief probably._ She smothered the guilt with a bite of veal marsala and noticed in her periphery that Esme kept stealing anticipatory glances at her. It was easy to hum some appreciation for the food, to satisfy those glances. Because it _was_ the best tasting thing she’d eaten since—ever? Probably ever. Getting Esme’s pleased little smile as a result was worth being, like, socially demonstrative. (If she thought about what veal _was_ , the guilt reasserted itself, but she couldn’t exactly refuse to eat on moral grounds. Not on this night. With all of the other weird social stuff going on, she just didn’t have the wherewithal; the daring; the sheer cojones.)

Rosalie and Emmett were talking about football, and Bella had never been so relieved to hear such ordinary conversation, even if she could follow less than ten percent of it. Even more: Esme’s husband was praising her cooking to a combined audience of Esme, Renata, and Aro across from him, and that was a conversation she could join—except, wait, the audience did not quite include Aro. He was looking at her again.

She pretended not to notice and wondered if she had something on her face but the rest of the family was just too polite to stare. Except…that totally wasn’t the case. In their acquaintance, she was pretty sure Emmett had stealthily _put_ things on her face at least twice before, usually for Angela or Jessica to alert her to some ill-defined amount of time later. As for the others, she at least could easily imagine Esme going for her cheek with a napkin, if Carlisle or Edward failed to discreetly inform her in time…

Something warm and a little painful settled in her chest. Bella hoped Charlie was having a good evening. She wondered what Renée was up to, too. Tomorrow, she’d send her an email with some of her more interesting (and less paranoid) observations of this family.

Aro was still looking at her.

There was another Cullen-Hale-mysteryItalianfamily oddity, she thought—not a single person in this room appeared to be over thirty. She imagined a wealthy-haunted-Victorian take on Logan’s Run; the idea startled a laugh out of her, which she quickly turned into a cough and grabbed her glass of water. No one seemed to notice…except Aro, who she could see was definitely still watching her as she tilted her head back to drink.

The surreality of this meal emboldened her. She sat the glass down and stared back.

—except as soon as she did, he was looking at Carlisle instead.

Had she seen it wrong? That was kind of a relief, if so. _Go with that. Anti-paranoia hunches only._

Esme and Renata were discussing steak tartar—“Next time we have a dinner, I’ll fix it instead. You’ll like it better.” Renata nodded mutely at Esme’s plan—and Carlisle turned his attention to Bella.

“What’s your favorite food, Bella?”

But her response to his polite interest was suspended, as the whole family fell silent and moved in unison again, each head turning to look toward the hallway arch. She felt gooseflesh break out along her arms and the back of her neck. How did they _do_ that? She followed their gazes.

Two new arrivals stood in the archway. One was grumpy; the other, wired. In other words, Jasper and Alice looked as they had in basically her whole acquaintance with the duo. “Hey everyone!” Alice chirped. “We’re home!” She beamed straight at Bella, who felt like a startled deer in the brilliance of the smile. “And _Bella’s_ here. What a nice surprise.”

“When you said you would return once—” Edward’s voice came through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, we were able to get here more quickly than you expected, huh?” Her expression sharpened and shifted away from her brother. “You must be Aro and Renata. I’m Alice Cullen, and this is my partner Jasper Hale.”

Renata inclined her head. Aro smiled at them. “My pleasure.” This was the first he’d spoken in her hearing, and his voice was oddly familiar.

“Have we met before?” was out of her mouth before she could reconsider. Everyone looked at her, then, and Aro’s eyes—not quite the amber of his family, but instead a paler, ruddy honey color—met hers.

As though delivering a solemn pronouncement, his voice, low and slow, formed the words: “No, we have not.” (Carlisle cleared his throat, but that didn’t mean anything. What could it even mean?) “—Not that I recall.”

Alice and Jasper had quietly taken the empty chairs while Bella was distracted by Aro. “We’ve already eaten,” Alice said, like an aside to an invisible audience, “but we’ll stay to catch up.”

“Good.” But Esme’s approval lacked the force of sincerity that Bella had already grown to expect from her. “It’s good to have you home.” _There_ was a touch of sincerity—a lee in a storm of social confusion.

Alice fidgeted, tapping her fingers on the table. Jasper just looked tired, weary in a way the others did not, and he kept shooting glances at Aro not unlike Edward’s. The family had resumed eating, but conversation hadn’t started again. Bella noticed that they all had mostly full plates, but hers was nearing empty. Was she eating too fast? She felt her face warm, wondering at what their expected mealtime etiquette was. But the food was so good…

“So, Bella, what are you planning on doing after high school? College? What major?” Alice’s questions took her by surprise. She’d expected the family to talk among themselves, given Alice’s expressed intent “to catch up.”

Remorsefully, Bella settled her fork—loaded with spinach, which was appetizing in a way the leafy stuff had never been to her before—against her plate. “Uh…not sure, just yet. I’ll probably head back south, anyway.” She smiled at her hosts. “I like Forks, but I _really_ miss sunlight.”

“Imagine that,” Aro murmured.

That unsettled her more than even Alice’s question had, and she found herself wanting to hide from the still-too-many eyes on her. At least Rosalie, Emmett, and Renata were looking down at their meals. Bella looked at Aro, meeting his eyes for once, at a loss for how to reply.

“We get a good deal more sunlight in Italy than you do in Forks,” he continued. “Have you ever been?” He spoke with an accent, maybe somewhere between Italian and British—the Queen’s English is what he would have learned, and she was struck that she had never heard an accent like his, even though his voice was still _almost_ reminding her of something.

She shook her head. The ability to vocalize seemed to have left her for the moment.

“You should.” Though it might superficially pass as the usual sort of recommendation for one’s home, his tone had an earnestness to it that left her with no better idea of how to reply than before. It was like Aro was saying, _You, Bella, in particular, need to visit Italy._ She had the impression that any response other than “I will, as soon as possible” would—not _anger_ him, but somehow disappoint him, and she didn’t really want to disappoint someone so hopeful. Even if it was strange that he was. Even if she didn’t have any intention of going to Italy.

Carlisle (blessed Carlisle) asked Alice how the trip back had been, and Bella found herself, mercifully, out of the spotlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Boy howdy this was a long'un.  
> \- The day job is silly busy, so it may be a while until I can get the next chapter finished and posted. 🙏 Thank you in advance for your patience.  
> \- As always, let me know if you spot any errors.  
> \- ??? owo i have nothing else to say


	5. Chapter 5

_Carlisle_

Carlisle found himself relieved for the young human to go. She was perfectly lovely, but he had felt the unease sparked by her visit lurking through his family and guests for the entire brief episode of her presence. The evening had felt longer and slightly more fraught than warranted, even accounting for the Italians.

Now, Emmett and Rosalie were away, having volunteered to drive Bella home. The rest were arranged about the living room, silent and waiting on some indication of how this little debriefing should begin. The peculiar behavior of two of the number meant no delay for a full party could be suffered; if anything important was revealed, the ones missing could be caught up later. He considered each of those gathered in turn from the chair where he sat.

Aro was uncharacteristically solemn. Leaning forward on the couch, head rested on the backs of his hands clasped, elbows propped on his legs, he was as silent as the rest. He was seemingly satisfied with Carlisle holding them there to discuss whatever he would, though his gaze shifted to the front hall often, like he wanted to follow the three who had left. Renata, standing near her master at the side of the sofa, was watching Edward like a hawk.

—Edward paced, a steady patrol before the archway to the front hall, his brow pinched, and shot disbelieving glances at Aro. Esme stood nearby, and Carlisle knew she awaited the opportunity to provide some comfort to her troubled son.

Alice stood next to Carlisle’s chair; Jasper was at her side, rather nearer to Aro than any other in the room save Renata. Carlisle had not expected Jasper and Alice back this very evening, in such a sudden manner, and he thought it likely that Alice knew the most of anyone in this room what was going on. It would be simple to ask her directly to explain—and he wished simplicity were an option, but felt that there was likely something delicate about the situation—there so often was—and he had better pursue the matter with the more directly related individuals (more related as best as he could tell).

These appraisals had hardly taken a full second.

“Edward,” he began, for his son was certainly the most obviously upset, and the quickest tack for comprehension might be to pursue that. Edward stilled himself—forcibly, deliberately, the halt in his walking was slower than necessary with no humans around—and turned from the front hall to Carlisle. He was not so tormented to avoid discussion, then. So Carlisle continued. “What troubles you?”

Edward inhaled to speak—but then exhaled, a deep and involuntarily shuddering breath that indicated just how shaken he was—and took a breath again. He looked at Alice, pleading (Carlisle kept his eyes intently upon Edward and did not know what he saw in his sister’s face), grimaced, and answered: “The matter is not mine to tell.”—followed by an audaciously pointed look to Aro. Under other circumstances Carlisle might caution Edward to be polite—but at this time, the eldest among them seemed oblivious to any disrespect.

“—oh, yes, I suppose so,” was all the acknowledgment that came from Aro, almost more to himself than to any others. But then he looked at Edward, a flat look, a look of unamused authority, and Carlisle wondered if he indeed ought to have interceded as Aro spoke—“You’re fortunate that I intended to share anyway, young Edward, or else I might be put out at your manners.”

Carlisle then looked at Edward in warning; Edward’s face was troubled in a way that might pass as contrition, softening Carlisle’s own, and regardless Aro seemed not to care. He straightened, hands loosely fisting against his legs.

“That human—Bella Swan is my mate.”—hardly a pause to let the enormity of this statement sink in—unlike Aro, this staid lack of theater—“And I shall be hers. I’ve considered the matter thoroughly the last few hours, and I can think of no reason to refuse this opportunity.”

Carlisle looked to his own bondmate. Esme returned his expression of surprise. The two of them were likely the _most_ surprised of any in the room, he considered, except perhaps Renata. (She looked like she’d swallowed a bug.) But Edward had certainly known, and must have from the moment Aro’d known, Carlisle reflected, at dinner—and Alice had anticipated it all, of course. (So this was what she had left to hide from Edward.) Had she told Jasper? Or was Jasper’s half-blasé, half-satisfied expression inspired sufficiently by the emotions that must be radiating from Aro? That detail hardly mattered at the moment. Aro had found his mate. After so long—

“How would you even refuse such a thing?” Esme asked, her surprise colored by wonder, looking back to Aro.

“As she is human, I could abandon the nascent bond and let it fade.” Aro’s reply was mechanical. Clearly—understandably, even—his thoughts were elsewhere.

Esme sought Carlisle’s eyes once more, a spontaneous gratitude springing up between them that their own bond had not been lost, as apparently was possible. _This night is full of revelation_ , he thought. Though he couldn’t hear her thoughts, he felt he nearly knew them as they passed behind her eyes. She looked at Aro, then Edward, and frowned slightly. “She’s young.”

Aro sighed.

Edward resumed pacing.

“You can be patient,” Alice said softly. Aro looked up at her as though he had forgotten she existed. A familiar spark entered his eye.

“You would know, wouldn’t you, young Alice?” Unceremoniously, he held out his hand to her. Jasper, who had been lurking about at the edges of whatever aura Aro was emitting, looked abruptly displeased. Another surprise: Edward abandoned his sulking and was at Jasper’s side instantly, a hand on his shoulder, ready to restrain.

Alice smiled and shook her head at all collected. “I probably don’t know as much as you think—and if you want to maintain any hope of being Bella’s mate, I’m afraid—” Here, her smile to Aro was sheepish. “Well, I’m afraid we can’t shake hands or anything.”

* * *

_Aro_

Aro had few problems these days. The last many years had been, relatively, quiet. Peaceful. Humanity’s marked technological dominance in the last two or so centuries was certainly a concern—should the masses become sufficiently aware, a concerted effort by humanity could make the lives of vampires…difficult. Many of his kind were too careless in maintaining the secrecy of their existence, as they lacked the broader view of the consequences of too many odd murders or disappearances in the era of widespread telecommunications. The Volturi made them care. Aro, Caius, and Marcus made the others of their kind—within their power—fear personal punishment and annihilation if they would not fear the end of their kind. Additionally, in the last decade or so, at Aro’s urging, his coven had taken a more proactive role in so-called “damage control” as well. One of the rotating tasks assigned to members of the Volterran coven was monitoring the Internet for such things as strange news, serial killings, and conspiracy theories that cut too close to the truth. (In the latter case, Aro enjoyed developing disinformation and concocting alternative theories to the humans’ for his companions to disseminate.)

From his position, leaning against the door to the hall, he eyed the laptop he’d brought with him. The gray, rectangular machine fit well on the small, sleek desk provided in this modernly styled room granted by his hosts. He supposed he would, soon enough, need to open it and properly respond to whatever missives lay in wait—perhaps from Chelsea or the other senior members, but very likely not from his brothers, who disdained the use of such tools—and he nearly did, as well, disdain it, this reminder at every turn of human ingenuity, but it was truly _so_ useful. If Marcus and Caius only understood the function of such a device as well as he did—but they couldn’t, could they?

Yes, he had few problems these days. His power was such that he collected solutions, after all. He had learned, in the recesses of his titanic memory, a hundred ways to address any common sort of conflict, to avert any familiar sort of disaster, and if need be to win any reasonable sort of battle. A battle with humanity _aware_ would not be reasonable; a battle with the Cullens might yet be, supposing he did not incite it with only himself and Renata at hand. Ah, but those were dangerous thoughts—or at least troublesome ones—should Edward be near and listening. Aro did not hear the youth nearby, and he felt even his own ill-behaved thoughts would not lead him down such a risky path had he unconsciously intuited the boy’s presence within the house—and truly Edward was meant to be out hunting with Rosalie and Renata for a while yet—but best to be cautious.

So long as his coven could continue to manipulate as needed the vague corruptions in the Italian government, the European Union, and to a limited extent Interpol, they could maintain their stronghold and the order it represented. None of those humans who had interacted with the humans the coven had hired to carry out such shady dealings knew of vampirism as other than a myth; for the most part, those humans who had served or did serve as faces for the coven were also not in on the secret. Vampiric abilities, their special powers, and no small amount of money were the best tools they had to shield against the threat of modern military technology. Always, always, always, there was a small voice in his thoughts urging him to better organize his own forces, to properly start on the long, arduous path to wresting control of the earth from mortals, and to become king perhaps of so much more, and openly, than he was now. _Not yet,_ was how he had dissuaded it in the past. He would think: _There’s no need for that just yet, is there? Maybe someday, but not right now._

Always, always, always, there had been that voice.

At the moment, that voice was silent, stymied by other voices entirely.

Indeed, he had few problems these days, but he had many inconveniences. Aro knew, from his many years, that inconveniences were a spice to life. They were the mild sting and unease of discomfort to force one onto one’s feet, seeking amelioration. Inconvenience provided reason where reason was lacking, and Aro knew what it was to lack reason—he had tasted pointless madness in a thousand mortals, and in the ancient twists of his own mind he felt it more intimately than most vampires did or ever would. So he cherished the many inconveniences. It was inconvenient that nonhuman animals were disgusting. It was inconvenient that the Olympians were not all so friendly to him as their leader was.

It was inconvenient that Bella Swan was human.

It was inconvenient that he would anger the Cullens were he to force the matter—and inconvenient that even if he took such action, he would have but a teenager for a bondmate. Oh, he did not too often fault them for it, those like the younger of Carlisle’s children, or his Jane and Alec—the abilities and lifetimes’ worth of experience of a vampire would eventually round out the unevenness of an adolescent personality. Aro himself had not been quite as old as he might’ve liked, in retrospect, when he had gained his immortality. He had had the benefit of knowing others’ minds in nauseatingly educational detail to broaden his own perspective, despite how disorienting his ability had been those early years. With enough time, perhaps another century or so, even someone like Edward Cullen might develop a better share of the equanimity of maturity.

Aro took a moment’s pleasure in considering how this assessment might rankle the telepath if he were near enough to overhear it. Truly he hoped, for Carlisle’s sake if no one else’s, that Edward would become better grounded sooner than in a century’s time. Inspired to some charitability, he had to admit that Edward in fact stood to better grow than many of their kind would ever—between his direct insights into sapient nature (human or vampire) and such a guiding hand as Carlisle around, there was reason to be optimistic. It was rather part of why Aro wanted him for his own coven, even setting aside the extreme usefulness of Edward’s telepathy. The youth had a good deal of potential, if he didn’t get too carried away in melancholy. Fifty years, maybe, and Aro would extend some more persuasive invitation than any prior. Much easier, however, to wait only five or ten or even fifteen years to turn Bella Swan, instead of turning her as soon as possible and then weathering decades if not centuries of personal development before she could begin to be a real partner—

A chuckle rose in his chest. Back still against the door, laughter building, he slid down to the floor, pulling his knees up to rest his elbows against them—his arms were stretched outward and upward, and he clasped his hands—at this his laughter redoubled—as though in prayer.

Few problems; many inconveniences. On both counts, he was pleased. What would his coven think? Should he call them, share the news? He could imagine it—

 _On a whim, I must now admit, I went searching for my mate, and I found her only a day after arriving at the Olympians’ home. She is a human friend of theirs. No, I haven’t turned her—yes, I’m aware of_ the law _, Caius, but she does not yet know about us, and we_ must _make an exception for a while should she learn._ Oh, Caius would not like that. Even Aro didn’t like it, not _really_ , and he found himself wavering on the decision to wait. It _was_ risky to leave her human for so long—and he knew well enough from reading Edward the day before that risk was a more prominent element in Bella’s life than justified by the biographical facts of it. If Aro had not abandoned a belief in curses literal millennia ago, he would think her cursed. Further, she was already so oddly entwined with the Cullens, and he could not quite decide if this was a good thing—as they could protect her and make certain she did not become aware of their secret prematurely—or if they were the precise source of risk on these fronts themselves. Or, rather, if Edward Cullen was the precise source of risk—the memories struck Aro then as they had not before he had seen Bella himself, the memories of the classroom, of the cafeteria—

A growl tore from his throat, and he was on his feet, his hands pushing the window open, before a complete thought could pass through his mind. Wrath—wrath nearly as consuming as that which had filled him when Didyme—

Slowly, he relaxed his hands and released the window frame—he was distantly relieved he had not bent the metal or broken the pane in his rage, and the incongruity of this mundane thought aided him in regaining his control. _Are you one to judge others on emotional maturity, then?_ came a blithe whisper to his mind. With a twinge of wounded pride, he sniffed, closed the window, and clasped his hands behind his back as he turned away. His eyes slid shut as he took stock. He had not reached either his age nor his status by randomly setting out to kill in a fit of passion those who offended him, despite what his erratic nature might feed rumors of. Edward had not injured Bella. Edward and the rest of his family were specifically _trying to keep Bella from harm_ , but they might not feel nearly so helpful toward Aro’s mate should Aro attack and likely destroy one of their own. Carlisle might do his best now to promote peace, kindness, etc., but if Aro so violently took Bella under his own protection, Carlisle would certainly concede that responsibility to him—to say the least of what the tricentenarian might do. It would be a diplomatic catastrophe. Aro would lose a trustworthy and reliable ally, and it would poison the well for ever getting the remaining empowered Olympians to someday join the Volturi coven.

He took a performatively steadying breath. A chorus of memories handed him the role he needed—the patient, the careful, the wise. The first step to having few problems was to avoid creating them himself.

Footsteps in the hall; a soft knock on the door. He could hear and smell them: Alice and Jasper had come to see him, undoubtedly drawn either by their own physical senses indicating a disturbance in his room or by some episode of violence briefly foreseen. Fully averted now, by his own reckoning, but he could understand the desire to investigate regardless.

“You may enter,” he called out, leaving his eyes closed for a few more milliseconds of solitude. He heard the door open and the nearly imperceptible steps of the pair as they, as little as possible, entered the room. He opened his eyes—Alice stood still in the doorway, but Jasper had come in more fully and stood nearly exactly between Alice and Aro. “I’m beginning to appreciate that impulse.”

Jasper and Alice exchanged a lightning fast look of confusion. “What impulse, if I can ask?” Jasper asked, his eyes wary as they met Aro’s.

He chuckled as earlier, feeling the nearly joyous laughter seek to return, but he restrained it. “To protect.” The empath was mollified by this. Alice smiled—nervously. She appeared to be a poor actor, if she was trying to disguise her nerves, which always struck Aro as an odd weakness for one of their kind to have—but he _would_ think that, he supposed.

“Right. I know you won’t do anything to Edward now, but I thought I should follow up on what just occurred.” She looked at the window in interest. “You didn’t destroy the window, huh? I don’t know what you actually ended up doing just now…”

“Nothing at all,” Aro offered. “Thankfully, I suppose we could say.” He would stay to the course of honesty he had decided after the dinner. “I found a certain element of the bond to be unexpectedly strong, but I have a better grasp of it now. Does that reassure you, young friends? May I ask what it is you did see?”

“This window, very broken as you climbed out, and then later a confrontation between you and Edward…” She hesitated. “Much too close to Bella’s house.” _For secrecy’s sake_ seemed to be the words she didn’t say, perhaps seeking not to offend him by implicitly pointing out his own capacity to violate the laws of their kind.

“I’m sure.” He fashioned his face for solemnity. “I happened to remember some of Edward’s recent experiences with Bella. The strength of my response to that caught me by surprise. But I am aware that none of you intend to harm Bella at all.”

Alice’s smile relaxed. “We really, really don’t.”

“I’m glad,” Aro replied. Jasper tensed, drawing a curious glance from his mate—Jasper felt the steel before it entered Aro’s voice. “Then you’ll understand when I ask that Edward refrain from being anywhere near her from now on.”

The silence was a protracted one, given all parties involved were vampires.

“He won’t hurt her,” Alice insisted. “Even if he’s around her, he won’t hurt her, now.”

“As long as she is human, I do not wish for us to take the risk.” He allowed Volturi authority to color his tone—not too much. He yet wanted to frame this as a cooperative venture. Jasper was watching him with narrowed eyes, but Aro had learned that Jasper’s power was not so fine as to pick up on the full information density and consequent nuance that, say, a telepath’s could. He was unconcerned, no matter how much attention the empath paid him.

“If I may ask…why are you leaving her human?” At this question from Alice, Jasper looked at her with a bit of surprise, to which she brazenly rolled her eyes, before seeming to remember herself and returning her attention, straight-faced, to Aro. “I mean, I like humans. I’m just surprised that you’re waiting.”

—best to avoid this whole topic with his coven, Aro decided then. If he did decide to wait a decade or so to turn Bella, it would be best for them to not know she existed. “Sometimes an obvious solution just happens to be for the wrong problem. I do not _only_ want to be Bella’s mate as soon as possible.”

Alice waited for additional explanation, but upon realizing none was forthcoming, became obviously nervous once more.

Guilelessly, he smiled at her. “Are you sure you can’t rethink shaking my hand, Alice?”

She shook her head and spoke firmly. “It’s a bad idea, Master Aro. _However_ …” She glanced around in a show of furtiveness and leaned forward. Jasper was unamused. “I can tell you a little bit more now that Edward’s out,” she whispered. _Now_ Jasper looked faintly scandalized. (Aro wondered if Jasper’s vampiric empathy contributed to his open-book nature, or if it was that his open nature as a human predisposed him to empathy as a talent in the first place.)

Things would be much more straightforward if Alice would—or _could_ , he allowed—let him read from her directly. This, too, was an inconvenience, but this was an inconvenience that could blossom to a problem. He considered the slight creature in front of him—he understood what it was to play a game, and he knew she was playing one, that the advantage he conceded by permitting her and Edward to go unread for a time could be used to many purposes, many secret plans, even if she did have legitimate clairvoyant cause to request the delay from him. But to which of many possible ends was she playing? Alice was, by Aro’s measure, the most dangerous of the Olympians—the sooner he knew what was going through her mind, the better.

His eyes did not leave her, and the mated pair were tense as he mentally ran over the persuasion she had employed for him to not take her hand earlier that night—“There are extremely good odds Bella will never be yours if we go about this the wrong way. If you gain certain knowledge of potential futures from either myself directly or by reading Edward at the wrong time, one or both of you are at risk of making the wrong decisions—even unmeditated, against your better judgments—that ruin our chances,” she had explained. Frustratingly low on details, but she had used “our” and had a fervor in her eyes as she spoke that led Aro to believe she was sincere in wanting to bring about the future where Bella was his, and so he had let the matter go for a time.

His struggle at the window did provide some fresh evidence to support her warning.

“Aren’t you concerned I might think on such things in Edward’s presence?”

“You know Edward knows I’m keeping things from him, too. Anything I tell you won’t be those.” Her tone was impatient, and she must have seen his opinion of that in his face for she hastily appended, “Sir.”

He chuckled. The younger vampires were visibly caught off guard. “Don’t call me _that_ , please. There’s no need. Shall I offer you a seat, or do you wish to share what you can from the threshold?”

Alice nudged Jasper forward in answer. He huffed, but as Aro stepped closer to the window to give them space, the two sat on the short, backless sofa next to a narrow bookshelf. Aro pulled the desk chair over to the window and sat, half-angled toward his hosts. “What is it you are able to tell me?”

“That is somewhat up to you, Master Aro. You know, most interactions I have are pretty normal, despite my sight? But in this conversation, I am aware that I am influencing the flow of events. And I think even with our _ideological_ differences, we are already very similarly aligned in what we want out of this situation. I know I can’t offer much proof of it, but I can at least extend you the courtesy and respect of trying to answer questions you might already have.” Her tone was professional. He believed she did not much like him personally, but she was willing to work with him—or at least put up a good show of it.

Aro decided he rather liked Alice, even if she did not return the regard. “Could you not use your power to anticipate what I would want to know?”

“A party trick.” She shook her head. “Yeah, of course. But I’m busy watching a lot of things right now.”

 _How many of those can you watch only because your brother is away?_ This brewing disagreement between Alice and Edward was an unexpected but welcome gift from the events that had led him to his prospective bondmate. He fully intended to take advantage of it, should an opportunity arise. Alice and Jasper had been away from home till the dinner, apparently to prevent Edward’s cognizance of Aro’s own arrival—perhaps the couple might return with him for a while to Volterra? Carlisle would not be fond of it, but he would not fight it at all if his children decided themselves to peaceably visit his coven. “While I certainly appreciate your support in this, such as it is, I do wonder what motivates you to offer it.”

Alice beamed; Jasper smiled slightly, his mate’s good humor infectious to him. “Bella is wonderful, and we’ll be good friends. I want her to be happy.”

Aro hummed at this, placed his elbow on an armrest, and tilted his head to rest on his fist. “How friendly you all are.” Alice shrugged happily.

So, what _did_ he want to know? He longed to ask after the human, her life and interests, but he also preferred to learn from Bella directly as much as possible, so he would defer such an indulgence for now. “What would happen if Bella was turned soon? Say, before I returned to Volterra?”

The faces in front of him soured. “The Quileute treaty would be violated,” Jasper answered.

Alice nodded. “That one doesn’t necessarily require any kind of psychic ability to call a bad idea, but even besides the treaty, Bella would be unhappy.”

“Pardon? What treaty?” Then he nearly scowled at the slip—but turned to the window and composed himself before engaging in so obvious a tell. Always best to present his lack of immediate access to absorbed memories as no significant issue. He was often better at bluffing while he searched; perhaps he was falling out of practice? Faintly absurd, that. He recalled the treaty now, anyway, from Carlisle’s memories. “Oh, yes, the Quileutes. Such odd beings…I have seen nothing quite like them.” Caius would loathe them for their mere similarity to the werewolves he had hunted; what a hassle that would be. “Certainly, doing anything to disturb the tribe is a poor idea—would draw the attention of humans, as strange sightings of massive wolves, or an outright battle. No, say instead we spirited Bella away to some other location to be turned. What are the results of that? Still unhappy?”

“She will not go willingly, at this time, to be turned.” And that was all Alice provided. He quirked his brows in a quiet urging to continue, but she did not.

“Why? Attachment to her current life? Friends? Family?”

Alice’s mouth was a grim slash, and her eyes were cool. “Rather. Bella is…I get the feeling that you don’t want me to spoil too much of the fun of getting to know her, but Bella is—vengeful, in her own way.” She sighed. “No, that’s not really the right word. But from what I can see of her, she can be very resolute. She—” Her lips quirked. “She doesn’t negotiate with hostage takers. If anything bad happens to, say, her father during this window of time—which I must leave unspecified—or if you push events to remove her prematurely from her life—she will reason things out in such a way to deny you the bond, forever.”

Aro had a very, very peculiar feeling then. A complex wave of emotion—of intrigue, of anger, of possessiveness and frustration, of sheer delight—bubbled up until he was cackling, long and openly, leaving the two before him stunned as they looked on. He laughed, longer than a human could, until the hysterical flavor to his mood at last passed. He exhaled, once, steadily and slow, lips still curled in sharp amusement—they continued to look on, speechless. “You’re negotiating _on her behalf_.” He smiled, all teeth, at Alice, ignoring Jasper’s glare. “Of _course you are_ —you’re sincere that you care about her, and you know that she as a human, wholly unfamiliar with our world, would find me objectionable in a dozen if not a hundred ways—isn’t that so? How much you have told me of her, in such a short description of outcome—she’ll _loathe_ me if I play too much the role of a fearsome, bloody king of vampires, won’t she?”

“You may be projecting your own concerns,” Alice squeaked. Jasper’s hands were white-knuckling his knees to avoid damaging the sofa.

Aro’s laughter was gentler this time. “Perhaps, dear Alice, perhaps. But you are, in effect, simulating conversations with our Bella as we speak, are you not? You are deciding things, arranging our futures, to obtain visions where you may determine what she would have you say to me. And through these mirages of the future, Bella threatens to withhold herself from me—to deny herself the experience of the same bond fulfilled—should I use any means she would disapprove of to bring our bond to full being. Does she not?”

Alice’s silence was its own answer, and something like remorse passed over her face.

“I see.” Aro stood. Jasper shot up to match, continuing to watch him warily, but Alice remained seated and placed a staying hand on Jasper’s wrist.

“It’ll be okay,” she murmured.

Feeling not at all the fearsome, bloody vampire king he referred to himself as and indeed had been seen by some to be, Aro turned to look out the window, at the dark canopy, at the trunks both Spartan and gnarled, and above at the constellations that this far north and west still struck his Mediterranean expectations as disorientingly tilted and wrong.

“I can only imagine,” Aro addressed to her, unlooking, “what reality is _like_ for you. I can sympathize, you know, a little. Sometimes I feel as though I only exist in the past.” He clasped his hands behind him. “You are speaking to a _ghost_ of Bella, who does not yet exist, will not exist unless you arrange things just so to ask her your questions. You ‘cannot’ tell me the context for these simulatory visions, can you?”

“I cannot.” Her voice was more confident again. That was good. He did not want to scare her into totally avoiding sharing information with him.

“Then I suppose I must trust you to be relaying her actual wishes, conditional though they are, as best as you can discover them with your ability.”

“Thank you.”

He turned to the pair once more. “I will respect those wishes. I will wait to turn her or have someone else turn her—until—until, let us say, either you or she indicate to me that it should soon happen, or if it is to prevent her mortal death or significant injury—maiming, severe head trauma, and the like. I _would_ prefer to wait, personally, as you know.”

“That is acceptable,” Alice breathed, relief palpable, and stood. Even her anxious mate relaxed at her side, taking her hand in his own.

“Additionally.” He tilted his head, adopted an expression of apology. “Edward really should keep his distance. I know even he feels so, after the most recent incident, and I do not intend to issue some authoritarian decree here—if not for Bella, this would be purely a family matter. I trust you all to work out some way for Edward to spend little to no time near to Bella, without perhaps alerting her to any significance to the change.”

Alice nodded mutely, and Jasper stepped toward the door, pulling her lightly along.

“I will not keep you any longer, young friends—” He watched Jasper freeze and smirked. “—but allow me one more question.”

“Yes, Master Aro?”

“When might we have Bella at the house again?”

The question inspired a soft smile to curve Alice’s mouth, and Aro could believe then that they were truly allies for this one goal, for now. “Next week. I don’t know the day yet, though.”

Perhaps this alliance would be ground for future collaboration. He hoped. Alice was a boon to whomever she was loyal, as was so clearly indicated by her actions this evening on Bella’s behalf.

“Thank you. Good evening to you both.” He smiled, bowed his head, and turned back to the window.

“To you as well,” was Alice’s hesitant response, and then they left the room as rapidly and silently as they were able. Aro did not fault them for this breach of etiquette. It suited him to be a _little_ feared.

Alone, as much as he could be in this house, he turned out the light, laid down on the bed provided him, and let the tension of theater, negotiation, authority, and all other concern and effort drain from his body.

For the first time since the moment itself, he allowed his mind to be filled with only one image, one thought complete in its sensory detail and emotion—the sight that his odd visions and dreams, now absent, had heralded—the pale skin, dark hair, and chocolate eyes of Bella Swan—her floral scent, the slightness of her breathing, her form curled barely in on itself as she stood, uncertain in manner, in the Cullens’ dining room—that display of hesitance which belied her eyes—her eyes, yes, a soft brown, but sharp in focus, darting to rest on each of them but not in the fear that a human’s ought. Anxious, but not only. She had a secret thirst to rival their own; he recognized it, as Edward had, and he wondered, had wondered many times in the hours since, what would satisfy that look in her eyes. Was it only revelation of their nature? Was she so intent upon whatever oddity she perceived in them? If she wished to negotiate with him, he would gladly hunt what she sought, to offer her, to improve his own position. If she demanded revelation, he believed he might submit. He felt a thrill at the thought of introducing her to his world—even if she were, ultimately, immune to his ability, he would delight in seeing it through her eyes.

Willing the question to reach her—if something like fate indeed created their bond, perhaps it might spontaneously allow a communication that skipped the trouble of meeting again, growing acquainted, Bella learning to trust him, or Alice acting as medium for a temporal ghost—he mouthed the words, shaped a tenuous breath to hardly a whisper: “For what do you hunt, _cara mia_?”

The darkness of the room beyond his eyelids absorbed the words; if they went anywhere further, he did not know.

* * *

_Alice_

Jasper led her back down to the living room, and she allowed herself to be led—she could traverse the whole house blindfolded and with ear plugs, if she wanted, but it was still nice to offload navigating to him while she continued to scour the future. Moreso scouring than she had been while talking with Aro. The attention that needed to be kept on the disconcertingly unpredictable vampire could be partially reassigned now, and she had much she wanted to observe before Edward returned.

Carlisle looked up at them from the laptop sitting on his legs. “All is well, I take it?”

Jasper nodded. “I believe so. I think Alice may want to catch you up, but Edward should be back soon…”

Alice did not bother to speak. Carlisle, somber due to the strife in his family and the intense surreality of Aro’s mere presence, did not press the topic. He shifted further to the left on the sofa. Jasper sat next to him, and the elder leaned back and clapped the younger on the shoulder, offering reassurance to the frazzled empath. Alice filled the narrow space remaining on the other side of Jasper, squeezed against him to fit, and took his hand back into her own. He closed his eyes, slid down into a more comfortable position, and leaned his head back against the sofa. Carlisle smiled and nodded gently toward Alice, who managed a smile in response, helped along by the wave of affection and gratitude that floated through her, and likely also Carlisle, from Jasper. It was a very slight manipulation on his part—he just liked to let his family know exactly what he was feeling.

Carlisle and the others had stayed downstairs at Alice’s insistence, when they had heard the rapid movement upstairs and she had seen the vision of the broken window. She was grateful for their trust, that they heeded her advice, and she wished she could tell them just what kinds of decisions she was making on their behalf. She wished to gather their preferences, directly from those affected, instead of performing the same tricks she was doing for Bella and Aro.

She’d never been a very patient person. Others might think her so, but it was easy to act patient when you knew what would happen. And there was just enough going on with the current tightrope she was walking, she _didn’t_ always know what was going to happen. Aro’s fit of anger, which had prompted her to approach him earlier than she had planned, was an excellent example of something unexpected.

In fact, she was noticing a trend: Aro and Bella both tended to _surprise_ her rather more often than she’d like, which was “at all,” given she was hardly ever surprised by the doings of people, vampire or human. In Aro’s case, she might chalk it up to his strange brand of indecision—some plans of his were firmly decided months in advance, but occasionally he would go and behave in some utterly _other_ way, and all her known visions of him would disappear for a time. That was just his personality. Maybe a side effect of his power.

 _Am I concerned that perhaps the most powerful leader of my kind is so unstable?_ Mentally, she shrugged. It made more work for her, to follow along his timelines, but at least for the time being the information she delivered regarding Bella had worked—she could see Aro doing nothing truly objectionable in any coming events. He didn’t want the woman he was already half-bound to to despise him.

 _Would this be enough to earn back Edward’s good will?_ No. Aro’s reformation would have to extend much deeper still, and Alice wasn’t sure that was very likely at all, even with vision-Bella’s causality-warping guidance. Edward’s hurt was more personal than anything Aro had done anyway, and Alice thought it most likely that Edward wouldn’t truly forgive her for a long, long while. (But she would do everything in her power to make sure that long while _existed_ for all of them.)

 _Vision-Bella’s causality-warping guidance_ was headache enough for the next century, Alice wagered, and she would definitely be talking the other woman’s ear off about it as soon as she could. Bella was rare in Alice’s visions, save those that had been directly related to her many potential deaths (largely subsided, now), and if Alice tried too hard to see her, she would develop a literal headache. No bueno. She’d never had so much trouble pinning someone down, and for no obvious reason. Bella didn’t even seem more indecisive than the average high schooler. Alice could still predict all kinds of minutiae, at least for the next few days, for all of her classmates. But for Bella, she could only confirm the girl would continue to exist, and _probably_ go to school.

Except. Oh ho, _except_ , a big huge **_except_**.

Alice had found multiple, very similar timelines’ visions that should have been so much fuzzier to her than they were—she shouldn’t have been able to see them so much, so easily, but with such a poor idea of their contributing conditions. She couldn’t even tell _when_ they were. But regardless of their mild impossibility, Alice had seen a vampiric Bella, in variations of some vaguely motel-like and impersonal but clean bedroom, writing in big letters on the flat white surface of a table “ALICE, DECIDE TO GO TO ROME WITH ME.”

And so Alice, bemused at such vision-based instruction, decided to go to Rome with Bella. Easy enough; sounded fun. She didn’t know when they would be going to Rome, so the whole vision house-of-cards should have collapsed, but…

From that first Rome-decided vision on, each time she squinted into that ill-defined future, she was met with some similar vision of Bella. Usually it was just a repetition of the Rome request, but sometimes Bella was writing other instructions and sharing information, like:

I WILL AVOID ARO FOREVER IF ANY OF MY FRIENDS OR FAMILY DIE BEFORE I’M TURNED

I WILL AVOID ARO FOREVER IF I AM TURNED BEFORE I WANT TO BE TURNED

THE FOREST WILL TURN OUT OKAY

YES I WOULD PREFER BEING TURNED TO DYING OR BEING PERMANENTLY COMATOSE

I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT ALICE AND I’LL FORGIVE YOU IF YOU DON’T GET EVERYTHING PERFECT

THE BEACH WILL TURN OUT OKAY

DON’T NEGOTIATE WITH HOSTAGE TAKERS

ARO SHOULD NOT TRY TO BRIBE ME

SEATTLE WILL PROBABLY NOT TURN OUT OKAY

She didn’t always understand what exactly vision-Bella communicated to her. There were a handful of statements like “THE BEACH WILL TURN OUT OKAY”, none of which meant anything specific to Alice at this time, but she dutifully retained them in her decision-making process all the same. The guidance had largely proven useful in talking to Aro. –Alice checked again on Aro’s current path, compulsively ensuring that he still wasn’t going to do anything rash or malicious (to the extent that she could even be sure of Aro’s behavior.)

For all the judgment calls that she was having to make by herself—and often half-blinded to the future, being careful around Edward as she was—she found herself deeply grateful for Bella’s consideration in these visions, even if Alice really didn’t know how she was seeing them, even if the whole mess seemed to violate certain laws of physics.

Using the instructions hadn’t exploded reality _yet_ , so it was probably fine. For now, as Friday night passed into Saturday morning, she would observe the coming week, as well as she could focusing on the decisions of the present Bella, on Edward (even if he wouldn’t talk to her), and on Aro (even if it meant he would).

* * *

_Bella_

Bella collapsed onto her bed, hardly feeling the will to pull down her blankets and crawl within after the trial that had been dinner at Edward’s house. She had supposedly gotten home a little before nine o’clock, a very reasonable hour, but she could have sworn that the whole visit had lasted, oh, three days.

As promised, after flopping onto the couch next to him, she’d explained the nature of her “good deed,” and Charlie had given her a sympathetic pat on the arm. She described the meal itself and how delicious it was, and otherwise kept her more idiosyncratic observations to herself.

“That was good of you, Bella. The Cullens are good people, if a bit odd.” His attention was starting to drift back to the television—not sports for once, but some movie unknown to Bella with cinematography and film quality straight from the 70s.

But she couldn’t release him from the conversation just yet. Not after he said that. “Odd? How so?”

Charlie’s eyes tracked a mounted cowboy galloping across the screen. “They just tend to keep to themselves, is all. I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard at school, and I don’t mean to feed that mill.”

Bella scowled at him playfully for his drifting away into movie-land. He didn’t notice. “I really haven’t heard anything too strange about them. But they do seem pretty…isolated. And, like, a socioeconomic rung or two above the average around here.”

Charlie shrugged and looked at her. “Forks is a lovely place to live, especially if you like being close to nature. They’re outdoors a lot, the Cullens—take a lot of camping trips and stuff, especially during the summer. Carlisle does good work at the hospital, too—for practically free, compared to what he could get in a city, for a surgeon of his skills. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

Bella grinned at him. “But you don’t want to feed any rumor mills.”

He returned the grin and his eyes to the screen, apparently considering the conversation over, and Bella let him go this time. He hadn’t really told her anything she hadn’t heard in some form from Jessica or the others. But she was reminded how terribly unusual it was for them to have invited her over—how unusual it had been for them, at least Edward and Emmett, to be so “friendly” these last few weeks. How unusual this evening had been, when considered in the light of the family’s asociability.

They had been so unnervingly interested in her. When the dinner itself finally drew to a close—Bella had excused herself to visit the bathroom, a favored sanctuary in any unfamiliar house, only to find that nearly everyone was done eating when she returned—a large chunk of the party returned to the living room, even though that meant a number of them had to take up standing positions about the room. She found herself sitting on the short sofa, with Jasper to one side and Alice propped casually against the armrest of the other, while Carlisle and Aro took the chairs. Edward and Renata stood on either side of Aro’s chair, and she fancied something fantastical about the arrangement—Aro sat in the chair as though it were a throne, hands gripping the armrests and a leg crossed, and the people around him were but his royal court. His eyes slid to hers again, then, and she felt her stomach flip like she’d been caught staring. She hadn’t been staring. She’d looked at him only a second, even with her flight of fancy, but then his gaze trapped hers and made her as good as stare—

Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment at the memory, and she buried her face against the cool surface of her pillow. Carlisle cleared his throat, drawing her attention, and that’s when the questions started. _Interrogation_ was too strong a word, but that’s what she wanted to call it. Alice, especially, took advantage of her spot next to Bella to pepper her with endless queries, turning nearly every topic of conversation into a prompt for Bella to _share_.

_Bella, what do you think you’ll major in in college? I’m undecided._

_Oh, I love musicals. Do you like music, Bella? Any favorite songs?_

_We’ve been talking about redecorating, but we all have different tastes. Rose wants way more bright colors, but Edward likes the atmosphere of so much white and gray. What’s your favorite color, Bella?_

She couldn’t refuse to answer, and she didn’t have cause to lie. _Astronomy, maybe. Sure; I like the new Green Day single. Gold or brown, I think, fall colors._

And so on. The whole period was hazy in her mind, even if she could recall a fair number of the questions. By the time Rose and Emmett had reappeared to take her home, she had felt dizzy from her efforts to track the conversation that flowed around her in some more meaningful way than simply listening for direct questions. The wonderful scent that Bella had noticed on Rosalie in the car was heavy in the air, and in her daze she found herself wishing they would open a window, even as she inhaled it more deeply to savor the sweetness.

Lying now on her bed, part of her wanted to get up and go record these observations in her silly Cullen-Hale mystery file, but as peculiar as the night had been, she didn’t have the energy.

—and maybe she didn’t recall all of the questions, actually. She had vague memories of Alice asking Bella if she liked anyone at school in a stage whisper, but the memory was surreal enough to feel like a dream—had she imagined it? But why would she? And the drive home, with Emmett and Rosalie, was a blur to her.

It was as she pursued these more nebulous recollections that Bella, fully day-clothed and lying on top of her bedding, fell asleep for the night.

* * *

The forest exhaled a strange mist in the evening. _No_ , Bella reconsidered as she observed the light weakly filtering through the leaves above, _it’s morning. I think the sun hasn’t risen yet._

“Where are you?” she called out to the woods, the silhouettes of trees looming, watching, from far overhead. She stood as still as she could, hardly breathing, and turned her head slowly to catch any response. The breeze picked up, and in the rustling of the canopy, a faint laughter danced.

“What do you _want_ with me?” Bella asked.

She had been here before, hadn’t she? There was the pale figure, who hid here from her—she knew if she just stared long enough, she would see them pass through the trees around, and if she could just see them, they would be forced to reveal themselves—

* * *

_Angela_

Bella had dark circles under her eyes that the fluorescent cafeteria lighting did no favors for. Like, Angela figured Bella was a bit of a night owl—most of their age group was, if not to the extent the Cullens and Hales seemed to be—but the other girl usually appeared to get something approaching enough sleep. That wasn’t the case today. “Are you okay, Bella?”

“Rough night.” The dark-haired girl made a face, and Angela smiled in return. “Tossing and turning a lot, every night this weekend. I had such weird dreams. I think I’ve been having them since I moved here, but I've been remembering them more clearly.” 

“Moving is stressful,” she provided.

“Yeah.” Bella’s agreement was half-hearted as the girl’s gaze drifted to the Cullens, who at least for this day had returned to their prior seating arrangement, claiming a round freestanding table for their own instead of joining the others at the long tables.

Angela was a bit sad to see Emmett and Edward go. Emmett’s playfulness was a little lively for her, but she could see how the others had had fun with his jokes—and Edward was…

“I’m sure they’re just catching up after being separated,” Angela offered.

Bella started and turned her attention back to their own group. “I—I don’t _care_.” And then she immediately reddened. Her mouth stumbled to explain: “Sorry, I just mean—”

Angela chuckled. “I’m not offended, Bella.”

Bella sighed, rubbed her eyes with her hands, and stretched back, striking an unusually dramatic pose for the generally stoic teenager. “Right, no. You’re too nice.”

She paused and looked over at Jessica, Mike, Eric, Lauren—all the others were distracted, enthusing about some plan to go to La Push next weekend, before the weather got any colder. Coming to some decision, Bella dropped her hands back to the table and leaned forward, her voice lowering to a near-whisper. “Can you stay for a moment after school? I have…something I’d like to talk about, but I don’t want to start any rumors or anything…”

Jessica, Angela noted, had glanced Bella’s way at the word “rumors”, but then upon seeing Bella’s current conversation partner was Angela, must have decided nothing too interesting or scandalous was being relayed, and turned back to listen to Mike outlining music to have at the beach party.

Angela ordinarily went home pretty promptly; she liked to get her homework done as soon as possible so that the rest of the evening would be free—otherwise, if Angela was too busy, the twins had the tendency to pester her parents endlessly. But Bella did appear to be troubled about something, more than just the stresses of moving…and, she had to admit, she was pleased to see the other teenager opening up. Angela was shy herself; she couldn’t imagine moving this late in their school careers and managing to make new friends, and it would have been painful to watch Bella fail to make any connections.

Also, she liked Bella.

“Sure. I can stay an extra ten or fifteen minutes. Is that enough time?”

Bella nodded. “Plenty. Thanks, Angela.”

Angela smiled, pleased to be helpful.

* * *

“I think the Cullens might be involved with the mafia.”

Bella did not look at Angela as she said it, instead looking out over the emptying parking lot—watching for the family named, Angela realized.

Even Angela, with her reputation for kindness, could experience some small regret in certain friendly overtures. She didn’t regret agreeing to stay late to talk to Bella, exactly, but…she couldn’t hide her surprise at Bella’s pronouncement. “Are you, uh, serious?”

“No?” came Bella’s voice in a small, uncertain burst. “I just…wanted to get one of my sillier ideas out of the way, maybe? I was hoping it would sound ridiculous if I said it aloud, and it sure does!” She laughed awkwardly and glanced at Angela, and Angela recognized and could empathize with the nerves that held the other girl rigid as a statue.

“Well.” Angela attempted to regroup, mentally. “What…else…have you got?”

Bella’s shoulders fell with relief. “You’re not going to ask why I _at all_ thought the Cullens might have mafia connections?”

Angela smiled and shrugged. “Bella, this whole town has been obsessed with that family since they showed up. I haven’t heard that specific theory before, and I’m kind of curious why you went for it, but…”

“Maybe I’m _not_ crazy,” Bella muttered more to herself than to Angela.

But Angela could confirm it. “Yeah, probably not. Not to be wondering about them.” She smiled and teased: “Not sure about the mafia thing though.”

Bella sighed, deeply and forcefully. “Between them and now the dreams, I’ve been pretty…kind of _legitimately_ …worried about my sanity.”

“Moving is stressful,” Angela echoed from lunch earlier.

This time Bella openly waved a hand to dismiss the thought. “Yeah, but I’ve moved before and never had issues like this.”

Angela shrugged. “This is the first and only time you’ve moved for your junior year of high school, practically halfway across the country. It really does make sense to have some issues with it.”

That seemed to land; Bella tilted her head, frowned lightly in consideration, and conceded the point. “Okay. Maybe, yeah.”

Angela smiled and checked her watch. “So...I've got a bit longer before I need to get home. Did you want to share any more silly ideas?”

* * *

_Alice_

Alice leapt up from the bed, a bolt of energy shocking her to standing. That vision—had Edward seen it? She kind of hoped he hadn’t, because she didn’t want another ball to juggle right now—oh, but she was _thinking_ about it, and he was sure to catch on _now_ —

She cringed as his voice called through the door to hers and Jasper’s room. “Alice? What was that?” His voice had all the displeased parental flavor that Rosalie utterly despised. _You’re not our Carlisle-or-Esme, Edward!_ Alice thought petulantly.

“Alice,” came his plea, dripping with weariness even muffled by the wood.

More footsteps; the door creaked open, her darling spouse the one at the handle, pushing through to look between Alice and Edward.

“Jasper, don’t let him _in_!” Alice pleaded herself. A desperate amusement, verging to laughter, undercut the sincerity of her request.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on right now, as much as you two do, but I can tell that now’s probably the best chance for reconciliation you’ll have for a while.” Her Jasper couldn’t see the future, no, but he knew emotional patterns very well, and he tended to jump at the opportunity to resolve conflicts. Maybe mostly so he didn’t have to put up with them, but Alice knew sometimes he went the extra mile to see a family disagreement resolved, and she appreciated that. This time was almost certainly not that.

She _could_ see the future, though, and she had to agree about the timing. What she had just seen might help her and Edward get along again. “Fine. I think I can share this without _ruining everything_. You know, because I’m just trying to help everyone.”

Edward rolled his eyes. They had rehashed this argument many times in the scant days since Alice had returned. He was of the mind, Alice knew, that there was a limit to the kinds of decisions Alice could make on his behalf. _And, you know, that’s totally fair, just this time is different_ , Alice reiterated in his direction. Edward was the only one who was doubting her judgment here, just because she had hidden a little thing like the extent of Aro’s involvement—

“The vision?” Edward prompted, seeking to leave their ongoing argument alone, if not resolved.

“It’s really tenuous,” she warned. Jasper passed her to sit in his chair by the window. Edward stepped properly into the room. She could hear the other members of their family halt their activities throughout the house, undoubtedly listening in on the conversation; there was no sign of this from their guests, who had been quiet already, but she couldn't imagine Aro would choose not to eavesdrop.

“I understand.”

“Like, it might not happen.”

“Okay.”

“It’s really, _really_ shaky—”

“Alice, I _know_.” Edward crossed his arms, but she could read in the set of his jaw and brow that what little he had glimpsed had him on edge. He softened his tone: “Please. Just show me.”

So Alice did.

She had become really accustomed to seeing grumpy-Edward-face; it was refreshing to see such an innocently dumbfounded expression overtake him. She couldn’t suppress the grin at it. (Or maybe she just didn’t want to.) Jasper, feeling the corresponding change in Edward’s emotions, went to his brother’s side, eyeing him speculatively.

At last, he produced words. “Angela? But I don’t…I haven’t…”

“Well, as we now know from what Ar…other events, it can be easy to miss. Actually, you know, this little chance makes me think: maybe bonding works kind of like my power? Maybe people have to make decisions such that they become candidates for mating…” Alice clapped her hands together and locked her fingers, bouncing back onto her heels. “And because vampires are so static compared to humans, when they meet each other as candidates for the bond, it basically locks in immediately, but humans are so variable—they can change so fast compared to us, you know—so maybe it’s just now becoming possible for you to feel that way toward her? I wonder what she’s decided lately? And you’re undergoing kind of a big thing yourself lately, what with Bella and—and everything—so what if that’s contributed to this becoming an option?”

Jasper watched her speculate with a wellspring of fondness, something he gently extended into her own emotional landscape. She smiled at him in gratitude and excitement. Edward seemed to not hear a word of it until the very end.

“No. It’s not an option.”

And with that, the shadowy vision evaporated. Jasper frowned; Alice deflated. “Edward, don’t—”

“No.” He shook his head, the nearly-awed cast to his visage rapidly fading to the recently common storminess. “This is a decision I will make, Alice. And I am not like—” He caught himself before he slighted the vampire who was likely listening in. Suffering no more discussion, he turned and left, leaving his siblings to frown at the space where he’d stood.

Alice kept herself from shouting it after him, but _You’re being really dumb!_ was a thought she couldn’t help but have.

Jasper placed an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him. “He’ll probably change his mind,” he whispered into her hair.

Alice _humph_ ed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The rails...the rails...they are weakening. Soon they will restrain us no more, and we shall be a free train, a free 2020 KToE Express frolicking according to our own whim.  
> \- wow this chapter is even longer than the lasT PLEASE THE WORDS WON'T STOP MY FINGERS HAVE A LIFE OF THEIR OWN PLEASE I AM RUNNING OUT OF KEYBOARDS  
> \- my day job really is steadily eating up my life, I'm pretty sure this chapter only happened so fast as some kind of perverse stress response. I'm sure now the next chapter is a ways off. Surely. Please. I must also sleep.  
> \- I...probably have not proofread this as thoroughly as I ought to've, so be sure to let me know about any issues.  
> \- I have been and will continue to make small, stealthy changes to previous chapters. If some detail in this or future chapters seems contradictory, there's a decent chance I've already revised earlier stuff to resolve that, or at least plan to, but please feel free to mention it, 'cause like. What if I *haven't* noticed it yet?  
> \- If'n you want you can follow the tumblr associated with this fanfic. It's rarely updated!  
> https://supposition-way.tumblr.com/


	6. Chapter 6

_Bella_

On one hand, Bella saw the two extra figures sitting at the bench table with the more ordinary crowd (in so _many_ small ways more ordinary) as an ill omen of further difficulty and confusion. On the other hand, the ever-hungrier part of her brain slavered at the evidence they might inadvertently provide, should she witness more of the family’s odd behavior.

Actually, those were the same hand. She dreaded every part of how she felt about this family.

At least Angela, Bella thought as she approached the table, seemed pleased to chat with Emmett and Alice. She sat nearest the Cullens and nodded along as Alice animatedly gestured through some explanation. Even after Bella had shared her concerns with the other girl—well, apparently Angela didn’t find the anxieties to be a black hole in her mind’s eye the way Bella did, because she acted as freely friendly as ever. That was good. Probably.

It was strange that it was Alice and not Edward at Emmett’s side. Edward didn’t even seem to be at school that day, and hadn’t been for the two days prior, but Bella couldn’t say that was too unusual for any of them at this point. No, moreso it was strange to see any half of one of the couples spending much time out of class without the other. They’d struck Bella as vaguely, habitually clingy, but it’s not like that was itself odd for teenage couples. (What must it be like for Edward, always being a fifth wheel? Maybe that contributed to his grumpy moods.)

Yet here were Alice and Emmett, and the Hales sat off by themselves, talking quietly about— _you know, crimes or something_ , she mocked herself. Bella averted her eyes from the blond siblings as she slid in next to Angela at the end of the table. Alice smiled at her from across the table, nearly vibrating with eagerness.

“Hi Bella!”

Bella smiled and nodded. Her fatigue was too great to allow her to call up energy to remotely match Alice’s. She set in on the tolerable cheese pizza before her. In time, she noticed the Cullens and Angela had not resumed conversation as she ate. She swallowed and looked fully up. Alice fidgeted; Emmett had propped his chin up with one hand, and the other tied a straw wrapper in surprisingly dexterous loops as he stared off into space (Bella scolded herself for assuming a big guy like Emmett would naturally have clumsy fingers); and Angela watched Bella—closely.

(Did she regret telling Angela her concerns? _Not yet_ , she decided. _She said she doesn’t think I’m crazy._ Bella would trust that.)

The others at the table were involved in their own conversations, apparently fully used to the Cullens’ occasional presence in a way Bella wasn’t sure she would ever be. Jessica in particular seemed less interested now that Edward wasn’t in their number; she and Lauren hovered over a magazine, trading comments on and criticisms of its contents.

“What is it?” Bella asked, as the silence in her immediate group continued. “Is something going on?”

Alice took this as her cue and smiled again, leaving Bella faintly confused. “So, I was wondering, and I’ve already asked Angela, and she’s agreed—would you like to come over Friday evening? I was thinking…you know, it was fun to have you over the other day, Bella, but I bet just us hanging out and not like a whole _family dinner_ thing would be way more fun. How about a movie night?” Emmett snorted. Alice elbowed him. Neither were subtle in these actions.

 _Again?_ Her impulse was to refuse, but there was something meaningful in Angela’s gaze that made Bella hesitate. If Angela would be there…and if it wasn’t going to be the _whole_ family that Bella would have to be around…

_Think of what you might discover._

She hurled that thought back into the dark corner whence it sprang. Angela’s encouragement, delivered as an earnest gaze, was very likely not founded on this being an opportunity for investigation, but rather friendship.

“Yeah. I’ll come over.” Bella nodded once, to seal it, and Alice’s amber eyes glowed when she smiled once again. _Alice, do you ever get jaw pain?_

* * *

_Charlie_

_Bella has always been an easy kid_ , Charlie reflected as he guided his cruiser along the calm, overcast mid-afternoon streets of Forks. She’d been a mostly pleasant baby and later a fairly congenial toddler, which had often been a welcome reprieve for her young parents—it was almost like she’d come into the world knowing that she needed to be the mature one, he thought drily, even as the old guilt ached in his chest.

She wasn’t much different as a teenager, though her occasional bouts of mother-henning concerned him—she’d always been sensible beyond her years, those summers she visited, but he had never really known how deep the behaviors ran until he witnessed daily the order she imposed around herself during the school year. He discovered rapidly he need not remind her of homework, to put gas in the truck, nor to clean her room or perhaps take a turn at some household chore. He found, instead, he practically had to race her to do some things around the house himself, or else she would gradually and quietly do it all. Or nearly so, anyway—he had not yet found her attempting to _pay_ the bills, though it had bemused him the first time she had announced their existence on the coffee table, as though he wouldn’t have seen them himself when he looked through the mail.

It didn’t take a whole lot of thought to figure out why his daughter was so responsible. His and Renée’s divorce had been pretty amicable, but faded resentment stirred to life once more. He had some things he might say to Renée next time they spoke.

It was a rare day—he was home early. And not even “early for him,” but _early_. Bella wasn’t home from school yet. He sat down on the couch, elbows on his knees and hands clasped as he looked around the living room for a moment, letting his thoughts coalesce again. Idly, he grabbed the remote and turned the TV on.

While no town the size of his, relatively small though it was, could claim Andy-Griffith levels of civic repose, Forks was generally quiet. It was also chronically understaffed at every level of local government and service, which left plenty of that everyday, dull sort of work for the police chief to handle himself. His late hours were much more often spent catching up on administrative tasks than on any activity that might feature in a police procedural. Since Bella, however, he wasn’t so hot to put in those hours. He wouldn’t neglect his duties, no, but maybe some of that paperwork could wait a little bit.

Seeing her everyday just reminded him how much he hadn’t _been_ seeing her. He’d thought leaving her with Renée had been the right choice—the best choice for her—but he was starting to suspect he wasn’t a worse parent than his ex-wife. Not to say that Renée was a bad parent—if children reflected on their parents, then no one could look at Bella and say much bad at all about Renée, but—

Well. He had his concerns. He had the words he maybe wanted to say to his ex. He had a few more he maybe wanted to say to Bella. And regardless of that, these last weeks had shown him that he wasn’t a _worse_ parent than Renée, no, but he’d sure be a different one in a few ways. Ways that might help Bella, before she went off to be an adult in earnest.

His officers had understood well enough, when Charlie said on Monday he would take a short day for once, come Wednesday, even if he didn’t say a thing about why. Many of them were older than he was; most of them had kids of their own; all of them knew the police chief’s daughter had moved to town not too long ago. It didn’t take a whole lot of thought to figure out why Charlie might want to spend some time away from work. He hardly ever took vacation time, anyway…so his thoughts started, but he cut them off. This wasn’t about what he deserved or was owed or had earned or anything like that. He would spend some time with his daughter. That was that.

Bella wasn’t expecting him home early. As he flipped restlessly through channels on the TV set, he wondered if maybe he should have told her—she wasn’t a big fan of surprises—he remembered her bursting into tears at the one surprise party they’d ever tried to give her, when she was five. He scratched his jaw, stroked his mustache, and sighed. It was probably fine.

And so it was: when Bella got home, she greeted him happily, unperturbed by the unannounced change in routine. She sat down next to him on the couch instead of going straight for her room—he didn’t mind when she spent most of an evening in her room, not really, but…well, he knew how quickly time flew by, and it wouldn’t be long at all before she’d be heading off for school—

He pushed his train of thought back the present. A lot of good this together time would do either of them if he spent it not even listening to her talk.

“—so it looks like I’ll be going over to watch a movie on Friday night.” She delivered this news with total glumness, as though announcing a court date.

He hadn’t been so distracted as to completely lose the thread, luckily. “The Cullens’ house again, huh? Are you…looking forward to it?”

A complex grimace twisted her expression before a simpler frown settled in. “No. But Angela will be there, at least, and I won’t feel like such an intruder if it’s not some big dinner.”

“Angela?” Charlie prompted, but then realized who it likely was: “Weber?”

Bella nodded.

“Her father’s the minister at the Lutheran church. They’re a kind family.”

Her features softened. “Yeah, I got that impression. Do you really know everyone in this town?”

He chuckled and glanced away at the warm surge of embarrassed pride. “Well, I know _of_ a majority of the _households_ , probably. But the Webers do some volunteering around the holidays with different community services, and Aric Weber—Angela’s father—does a lot of work with his church for the annual drives, so I mostly know them from that.”

She hummed thoughtfully, and they lapsed into a companionable silence as Charlie left a rerun of _The Next Generation_ up on the screen. Bella seemed content to watch the crew of the Enterprise engage in a holodeck misadventure, but his attention was elsewhere.

His half-formed intentions, the specific topics he might want to broach with her, swirled in vague clouds in the back of his mind. It was nerves, born of his still-present unfamiliarity with dealing at length with her, that made him hesitate and left ghosts of words unshaped in his throat, unable to escape his mouth. It was far better to be clumsy than wholly silent, however, and at least _one_ of the topics wasn’t too heavy or potentially awkward—

“By the way, Bells…” He kept his gaze focused on the screen but saw her look over in his peripheral vision. _Stay casual_. She was reasonable, but she was still a teenager, and he wasn’t yet sure what all that might mean, behaviorally. “Try not to leave before dawn to go on morning walks, if you’re going to go into the woods. Starts getting pretty chilly this time of year, even with a jacket, and I don’t want you getting turned around in the dark. The wildlife can be fairly active, too.”

No response. He glanced her way; her face was blank as she looked at him, and he had a sinking feeling he really had managed to activate her teenager-self. “Glad you’re enjoying the nature around here, though,” he followed up lamely, offering a smile to placate.

She blinked once, twice, and then swallowed, nodded, and turned back to the TV; Charlie mirrored the last action. _Was I not supposed to notice that she’d been going out?_ But it’d be hard to miss, the handful of times he’d been getting ready to leave for work and saw that her jacket was missing, or the few times when he’d seen bits of newly tracked-in dead leaves and traces of dirt around the back door. Odd, for his Bells; she’d always been more of a night owl than an early bird, if either, and those summer fishing trips where she tagged along, she’d been a zombie till well after sunrise. But this was around the age when preferences like that could start to change and new habits could form, and he couldn’t oppose early morning walks—he just wanted her to be careful.

He decided her reticence wasn’t likely because of being found out, even though that left its cause a mystery. Bella’d always been private—she came by it honestly, he knew—but he didn’t think she was likely to keep secrets.

“Sure,” she said, somewhat belatedly. “Yeah, I’ll try not to leave too early.” She looked back at him, smiled weakly, and then stood. “I’m gonna go start on homework. And you’re doing dinner tonight, right?”

“Sure am.”

“Be back down by then.” She saluted—a gesture he’d not seen her perform since she was quite a lot younger, which reassured him that, though this was likely an episode of teenageriness, it was not driven by any newfound annoyance with him. _Though I guess, odds are, I won’t be able to avoid that forever._ He let her carry on toward her room without further comment, considering the whole episode to have been a partial success at least. He was here, _available_ , and that’s what was important, even if they didn’t spend the extra hours his short workday had granted him entirely together.

* * *

_Bella_

Bella stood, on trembling legs, in the middle of her room, and looked at her purple quilt-covered bed with a mix of a plea and distrust. _What’s happening to me?_

The bed didn’t offer any more answers than the bathroom mirror had after she’d splashed her face with water to quell the nausea.

She hadn’t been taking morning walks, but she had been having strangely vivid dreams of the woods, and the line between these two dots was a short one. It also wholly inverted her view of reality. _I haven’t been having dreams. Or, not_ only _dreams. And I_ have _been taking walks._ The evidence, secondhand though it was, favored this inversion.

 _Stress can cause sleepwalking._ She didn’t know where she’d heard it, but the factoid floated to the top of her thoughts, and she clung to it like a lifeline. _Maybe moving was more stressful than I’d thought. Like Angela said._ But Bella felt about a hundred times tenser now that she’d learned she was probably wandering around in her sleep in the wee hours than she’d felt not half an hour ago, driving home from school. How was she supposed to handle this?

She raked her fingers through her hair. _Bet I’ll sleep just wonderfully tonight._

* * *

_Angela_

“How about that one, Bella?” Alice pointed out one of the many varieties of snack arrayed on the shelf before the trio. The dazed brunette standing between Angela and Alice dutifully picked up a bag of pretzels, as though the suggestion were an order. Ghost-pale in the overbright lights of the store, she stared down at it like it was communicating with her telepathically.

Angela worried. Bella had appeared to be doing better after confiding her own worries, but the last couple of days had seen the dark circles under her eyes grow deep and her focus sporadic, and Angela had the feeling that the returned presence of Cullens at lunch had little to do with it, unless some fresh conspiracy was plaguing her. —that just didn’t _seem_ right, but she didn’t know Bella well enough to know what else might be bothering her, and she wasn’t sure how to ask. This movie night probably shouldn’t be happening, the way Bella had nearly dozed off in the car earlier, but when Angela had asked her if she was feeling okay, she’d replied with an uncommonly forceful “I’m feeling just great” and widened her eyes in the desperate-to-stay-awake manner of one both sleep-deprived and in denial.

Alice carried on with her plans for the night, oblivious to Bella’s fatigue and to Angela’s mild incredulity. _I just don’t understand how she can miss Bella’s state. I’m sure she’s not pretending to miss it, anyway. Why would she?_ Bella had said she’d noticed the Cullens behaving in ways that didn’t make sense but thought that maybe those behaviors were important…somehow…even if that “evidence” didn’t support the organized crime hypothesis nor any other she’d considered. Angela wondered if this kind of social cluelessness was among what Bella had seen.

The first phase of Alice’s plan, as she had shared after she’d picked up both of her guests, was to stop at a convenience store for snacks. (“We don’t really keep stuff like that around the house, but I think movie nights need snacks? Right?”—she’d then looked to the others for confirmation, a look to which Bella did not respond but Angela nodded.) Angela and Alice had picked items fairly speedily—Angela had a sweet tooth she rarely got to indulge, trying to be a good example for the twins at home, and went straight for a candy bar (very importantly containing chocolate and toffee) and a bag of M&M’s. Alice had, with a nearly indiscriminate rapidity, selected a pack of beef jerky, a bag of cheese popcorn, and a prepackaged ball of cotton candy that Angela’d never seen anyone over the age of twelve eat.

Meanwhile, Bella had stared blankly at a shelf of chips until the other two had come by and Alice’d made the decision on her behalf.

Alice covered the cost of everyone’s snacks, railroading handily over Angela’s half-hearted objection (and Bella’s complete lack thereof) by announcing her intention to pay to the woman at the cash register. The second phase commenced when they were once more in Alice’s car—a yellow Porsche, of all things, which had sourced a good deal of the half-heartedness of Angela’s objection to being paid for and subversively lent credence to Bella’s claims-slash-suspicions.

“Though I have already eaten,” Alice began, after starting the vehicle but before pulling out of the convenience store parking lot, “I don’t think either of you have, so how about we pick up a pizza?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Angela answered—this route assuaged the small note of uncertainty she’d felt at the idea of eating only candy for dinner. Bella but gazed mutely out the passenger seat window at the night falling upon the town.

“Excellent.” Alice proceeded to drive, asking Angela—and ostensibly Bella—questions about their classes and hobbies—though she seemed unbothered by Bella offering at best hums of affirmation and generic agreement with whatever Angela said about junior-level classes and teachers. When they arrived at the small parlor that shared a building with what was currently a bookstore, the to-go pizza was waiting for them at the counter. Alice had the decency to look sheepish about the already-placed order. (“I guess you know now my asking was just a formality, huh? Put your wallet away, Angela, it’s really fine.”)

Back in the car they went. “We eat a lot of pizza, don’t we?” Bella mused as she held the box in her lap, once all were settled and the drive began again.

“They do serve it a lot at school, don’t they?” Alice responded, like this was an entirely characteristic observation for Bella to have made, but Bella initiating such floaty small talk was a new experience for Angela. _It’s not like we’ve known each other for long._ “I bet that pizza’s better though.”

“It is.” Upon providing this confirmation, Bella returned her attention to the window to watch the town fade into forest; Angela watched Alice in the rearview mirror, but the other girl still seemed unconcerned with Bella’s fogginess. After a significant—but not unpleasant—moment of silence, Alice’s eyes met hers through the reflection. A soft smile, which Angela could not see directly, colored those eyes as much as it did her voice when she spoke.

“Angela, what do you think of my brother?”

“Um.” Caught off guard, Angela grasped for an answer. “Edward’s nice, I guess.”

“Oh, I meant Emmett. Y’know, ‘cause he’s been hanging around you all so much. I wanted to make sure he hasn’t caused any trouble when I wasn’t there.” Alice giggled and looked back to the road. “He tends to tease, but he means well.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “Oh, yes. Yeah, Emmett’s been fine.” _Wasn’t Edward around a lot, too, before?_ But she smiled, shaking off her own uneasiness at whatever had just happened. “He kind of reminds me of my own brothers?”

Alice glanced to the mirror, and Angela, again. “You have siblings, too?”

“Yep. Two younger brothers. Twins.” She grinned. “They can be rascals, but they’re great.”

Alice laughed, and Angela could swear she heard tinkling bells in it. “Then you get how I feel about mine. Edward’s nice, you said—but he can be as much trouble as _any_ of us Cullens-and-Hales.”

“Can he?”

Alice fell quiet, and Angela second-guessed her question—was it too nosy? Had she sounded too curious? But she was just continuing the conversation, right? Then Alice’s nearly golden eyes flicked back up to the mirror. “Sorry, we’re almost there, just making sure I hadn’t missed the turn—things look so different at night! But, yeah, totally.” She winked and looked back down. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but he can be a huge sore loser.”

Alice tried to square this away with the polite, somewhat distant boy she knew. “I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“It’s because he’s so used to winning. To being _right_.” She snorted. “Of course, I am too, so sometimes we really butt heads.”

Angela swallowed a laugh of her own and tilted away from the mirror’s view, disguising her full amusement at this information—she didn’t want to laugh too openly at Alice’s self-identified flaw. “I really wouldn’t have called that.”

“Full of surprises, us Cullens.”

* * *

Bella was nearly asleep again when they arrived, her head tipping forward in a lazy circle above the pizza box, but with a bit of time, food, and the not-too-bright, not-too-dark lighting of the Cullens’ house, she revived. Still fuzzy around the edges, Angela noted, but not in quite so alarming a state as before.

“Bella—did you say you liked sci-fi in the car?” Alice, meanwhile, had energy unflagging.

The trio stood before a cabinet Alice’d opened with a flourish, the interior of which contained maybe a whole Blockbuster’s worth of DVDs. Angela didn’t even have a DVD player at home; the twins were yet wearing down a collection of VHSes that consisted mostly of the same tapes Angela had watched when she was their age.

Bella frowned. “Did I? I don’t remember.” Angela didn’t either. “But I do like sci-fi, yeah.”

“I’m kind of in the mood for it myself.” Alice slid three cases out of the shelves with a fluidity that left Angela bizarrely awed. _Bella mentioned stuff like this, didn’t she? That they move oddly…well?_ “How about one of these?”

She fanned the plastic cases between them as the trio circled ‘round. Bella crossed her arms and stared down at the movies with an expression of intent.

“Angela, have you seen any of these?” Alice asked.

She shook her head. “I’m fine with whatever. I’ve only ever even heard of the Star Trek one at all.”

Bella nodded once and hummed. “Let’s do this one.” She pointed at a black-and-white movie. “Of these three, it’s probably my favorite, and I think you’ll like it, Angela. It can be kind of cheesy, though.”

“What about me, Bella?” Alice pouted. A twitch at the corner of her mouth indicated her sincerity—or, rather, insincerity.

Bella looked up from the monochromatic DVD case that she’d taken into her own hands. “Pardon? Can you be cheesy?”

“Don’t you think I’ll like it?”

“…haven’t you already seen these? Sorry, I just thought you chose movies you liked in the first place—” Alice’s chuckle interrupted Bella, her mask of sadness dissolving, and Bella sighed through a crooked smile. “Oh, that was cruel.”

“Deepest apologies,” the older girl chirped before replacing the other two movies in the shelf. “Claim your seats, friends! You have the pick, though I wouldn’t be shocked if one of my siblings or Jasp stops by to catch part of the film.”

She waved her hands toward the couch, chairs, and pillows arrayed around the space—whose dedicated purpose to activities such as watching movies felt residually surreal to Angela, even though at first glance it didn’t strike her as much different from a small living room with a large TV. But she had seen the living room, as they had come in—had briefly met Alice’s parents, Esme and Carlisle, there—and Alice had called this _the TV room_. Which reminded Angela of her grandparents in Seattle, though the Cullens’ version of that concept was much more akin to _home theater_ , with the same modern furniture as the rest of the house, and bore little resemblance to the spare room with 70s wallpaper and upholstery where Angela and her brothers would camp on inflatable mattresses when visiting.

After they had arranged themselves, settled with snacks at the ready, and the opening credits filled the screen, Angela found that this movie that Bella picked reminded her of that spare room in a completely different way.

“Bella…this movie is _so_ old.” Alice’s comment carried through the dark room with a deep undercurrent of amusement.

“It is. Please make fun of it.” Bella paused to take a sip of soda. “I grew up watching movies like this with Charlie and Renée. I love them—like, this movie is really idealistic in a sweet way—but then wait until we get to the part where the earth ‘stands still.’ It’s like a late-night commercial with frustrated housewives.”

Angela smiled over at Bella—even though, sitting at the opposite end of the couch, the other girl didn’t notice. She’d been put off by Bella calling her parents by their _names_ , and still didn’t really get that, but maybe the Swan family wasn’t so odd after all. Definitely no stranger than those whose house they were currently in. (She could agree at least that far in Bella’s assessment of them.)

Alice suddenly stood from where she’d sat cross-legged on the floor in front of and between them, nested in pillows, and let a blanket fall from her shoulders. “Be right back.” She walked swiftly out the door, letting it shut behind her.

Bella watched Alice leave. Angela made a face at her, drawing Bella’s gaze, and twirled an imaginary mustache in a pantomime of Inspector Poirot. “I suspect ze bathroom.”

Bella smiled reluctantly and looked back to the film. “A solid hypothesis. Let’s watch the movie.” But, as Angela witnessed the events play out on screen (alien robot, Cold War era suspicions), she saw Bella look frequently toward the door.

Many minutes passed. Angela’s own soda caught up with her. “I wonder if the bathroom is free yet?”

Bella stood up a bit too eagerly, in Angela’s estimation. “Let’s find out. I’ll show you where it is.”

Angela found the DVD player’s remote (abandoned with Alice’s nest) and paused the movie. Caught up in Bella’s lead, Angela exited the TV room with more stealth than was either warranted or appropriate, the pair stepping lightly and closing the door behind them silently. The hallway was dim and cool, and she felt goosebumps break out on her arms.

“Bella, why are we sneaking?” Angela whispered, telegraphing her disapproval as well as she could without saying as much—but Bella hardly glanced back at her friend’s frown and only raised a finger to her lips. They crept through the hall until they reached the stairs, at which point Bella paused and stared down them with a frown of her own.

“Why is this house so quiet, with so many people living here?” Bella’s question was hardly audible, and Angela believed it might not be for her.

She answered anyway, daring to raise her voice to near-speaking levels. “Maybe most of them are out?”

Bella frowned, sighed, and nodded.

“I believe so,” came a voice from behind them. Bella jumped, to Angela’s exasperated amusement, and they turned to find the source. A young man with long, inky hair—older than the Cullen and Hale siblings, maybe of an age with the parents—stood several feet away, little more than a silhouette in the weak light of the cloud-shrouded moon that filtered through the wide window at the other end of the hall.

“Aro.” Bella’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Hello.”

“Good evening, Bella. I see Alice has left you, her guests, unattended. She shouldn’t have.” His words implied a concern with being a good host, but his tone was something else, something that Angela couldn’t quite comprehend—maybe it was his accent. Backlit in the dim hall, his face was difficult for Angela to make out, but she could just barely see his eyes pass from Bella to herself. Like she had noticed of Edward’s and Alice’s, his eyes seemed almost to glow with a subtle light of their own, though his were more copper than their gold. “You must be Angela.”

“Um, yep. I am. And you’re one of the Cullens’ visitors from Italy, right? It’s nice to meet you.”

He tilted his head in affirmation and apparently to return the sentiment, and did no more. A silence fell.

Angela glanced over at Bella, who was watching Aro like he might be about to—do a magic trick? Pull a knife? Maybe reveal his evil plan, as surely he had one? She could not tell what was going through Bella’s mind, but the man wore (she saw as her eyes adjusted to the light) a black suit—even the shirt was black—and could not have looked more stereotypically a modern villain than if he’d asked Bella for tips on how to better conform to her theories for the family. His face was unreadable to Angela, still, but he was returning Bella’s stare, hands clasped behind his back, seemingly unperturbed by her friend’s openly suspicious attention.

“So, we were looking for the restroom…” Angela at last offered, in an attempt to break the spell of wordless staring that had fallen over the other two.

“I know where the bathroom is,” Bella cut in before Aro could answer, trampling Angela’s attempt to cover for their lingering presence in the hall. “I was wondering where Alice is, actually.”

“Edward came home some moments ago, and they are outside discussing a matter.” Aro stepped forward, once, twice. The light from the floor below, though scant as it traveled up the stairway, better illuminated his face as he drew nearer to them. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can eavesdrop from the window in my room, if you’d like. It’s good for it.”

Bella hummed, then nodded and opened her mouth—

“O-oh, no.” Angela interrupted and waved her hands. “Why would we eavesdrop? What if it’s a private conversation?”

“Hardly.” His tone was deadpan. “But I can respect your adherence to propriety. Skulking about our hosts’ home _would_ be rude, wouldn’t it?”

Angela nodded, but Bella shrugged. “I’m sure none of us were…skulking.”

“Ah—perhaps I misunderstand.” His eyes glittered. “‘Neither’ of you, did you mean?”

“Nope, I meant ‘none.’ As in not one of the _three_ of us.”

“ _Bella_ ,” Angela exhaled, pulling her friend’s arm back toward the stairs. “I’m sure Mr. Aro wasn’t sneaking—”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said.” Bella’s delivery was dry.

“—so would you _please_ show me where the bathroom is?”

With a shrug, Bella allowed Angela to pull her downstairs. The Italian said nothing in parting, and they did not see him again that night.

* * *

_Edward_

Isolation didn’t suit Edward. Excessive solitude did unpleasant things to his mind; the melancholy that he was ordinarily prone to was far from the worst of the moods that became so much likelier when he was too long gone from friend or family. He knew this about himself. And he had mourned, the many times he’d caught sight of the warm light emanating from his home through the trees, that he had been unable to stomach staying within it much these last few days. Alice probably hadn’t told anyone the details of the vision, but he knew they had all been listening in, and that conversation had revealed more than he wished to discuss—or wished to overhear reference to in the thoughts of his family. It was too much. It was all too much—Bella’s scent, Aro’s arrival, Aro _and_ Bella, Alice’s subterfuge, and now Ang—

His thoughts flinched away from that. A forbidden name for a forbidden image—a scene brief but bright in Alice’s viewing—

_No._

He had spent most of his time these last days in the woods, far enough to rarely be in range of the others’ thoughts. The trees allowed him their refuge, and if trees thought then it was too slow and quiet for him to hear. Carlisle had let him go, but he knew that soon the situation would need to be resolved, one way or another—the others could cope with his absence, logistically speaking, but if it was to become his habit, a new normal for a time, they deserved to not be left in limbo. This was the consideration that set him toward home again.

To his knowledge, however, there was still little enough that could actually be put forward—by him or by Alice—to resolve their dispute cleanly. She had made her decisions, and the damage was done. He had made his own—and he prayed, in hopes that some force in the universe might have mercy for a monster, that he would not waver. The intractability of their impasse was what had him only walking toward home at a human’s pace, and not running at his true speed. He was dawdling.

Angela Weber’s soul would not be destroyed due to his selfishness. If he could, he would save Bella Swan’s as well. Edward still held out a weak hope that Aro would come to his _superior_ senses and decide she was too far beneath him to be his mate.

 _Perhaps that is what appeals to him,_ a barbed voice in his thoughts commented. _She may never be his equal, and she is so very young, so inexperienced, so open to manipulation—_

Edward froze amid the twisted and looming shades of nighttime trees with the distinct, impossible sensation of his gorge rising. He forced breath through his chest, listened for the rustle of creatures unaware of the predator so near them, looked up to the sky’s faintly moonlit texture of clouds; he bathed his senses in the immediate nature of things, because he could not afford to enter his home with such thoughts as those roiling through his head. Aro had promised to not read Edward, but that was nearly meaningless—if he decided to break that promise, to what authority was there to appeal, to press suit? His family could take direct action against the elder vampire, and likely win at this time—but the Volturi would seek vengeance, and that would be the end of their coven. The best-case scenario, in the world where his family was hunted by the Volturi, would be decades of hiding before some small, fatal error led Caius to them.

Edward knew the limits of Aro’s ability perhaps better than anyone other than Aro himself; if the king-of-sorts had no cause to sift through the deluge of information he received from another at his touch, in search of some specific matter, then there was much among his new knowledge he might not consciously notice. And, like Edward’s own power, Aro’s seemed to favor the most immediate and emotionally salient thoughts. So Edward had been practicing, as well, these last few days, rendering his concerns boring even to himself; so he had instead decided to love the woods as though it were an extension of his own body; so he dove now into the simple scents of the forest, the humble noises of nocturnal creatures, and the polite dance of cloudforms above, until his mind was cleansed of any damning speculation regarding their visiting emissary, and he walked once more. The warm light spilling from further up the woods guided him through, beckoning him to a home that, even while compromised by strange events and unpleasant visitors, was still his.

This meditation on his most present experience led him to a state of near-peace that he had hardly known the weeks prior but had this week grown ever closer to, and it was this state of near-peace that caught fire and burned away when he heard those thoughts within the house ahead that were in the usual mental voice of Angela Weber.

* * *

Standing between him and the front door, Alice had the decency to look apologetic, though her thoughts belied the regret rather too much for Edward to let go of his anger. “ _Alice_ ,” was all he’d needed to say to summon her outside; she’d come down as quickly as maintaining a silent-to-humans speed had allowed.

“You want to watch the movie with us?” she asked, like they didn’t both know the answer. Oh— _oh_ —but she didn’t _know_ the answer, did she? Her thoughts revealed that his own resolve was still weak enough that he might yet cave, and he could feel in her every smothered half-thought that she would work at those pressure points until he did.

There would be no resolution between them this evening.

“How could you?” he asked in return. Her face fell.

 _We could be so happy, Edward._ You _could be so happy._

Could she not see how this anguished him? “At what cost?”

This same basic argument had played out a thousand times between them, but never with such stakes. She looked away from him, turned her head aside to look out toward the tree line. _She deserves to know she has the opportunity. She deserves to make a choice. They both do._

 _Why tempt innocents with a devil’s bargain?_ he thought, hidden from her own hearing. He shook his head. “The choice is a burden itself. A curse.”

Fragments of images and snippets of speech—her own thoughts and memories—flashed through her head, catching in his for only an instant before dissolving. She tried hard to not let him see what his words reminded her of—and she was nearly successful, but nearly was still failure.

Alice had seen dozens of games of temporally acausal poker pass between Aro and Bella, with herself as the medium for their calls and bluffs, where an Aro who gleefully bet the house was an Aro who forced Bella to join him. Edward gathered the loose fragments of her memories, pieced them together, and saw _enough_ of the game Alice and Aro now played with Bella between them. Like Edward, Aro would not have burdened Bella with _choice_ , if he had his own way.

“I am nothing like him,” he hissed.

 _No, you’re not—_ and Alice’s hands jumped to cover her mouth, as though that might stop the thought or take its words back, but it already lay between them:

 _Because she_ wants _a choice, and so he is giving her one. Edward, that’s only_ right _._

The words hit him like a sheet of ice water. “You’re saying he’s better than me?”

_No! That’s not what I meant._

But he ignored her protests—now become vocal, a litany of “Edward, please” and “wait” and “I’m sorry”—the thoughts, mentally shouted, of _Bella is forcing his hand_ and _he’s what you shouldn’t be, but give Angela a choice_ —and marched past her into the house.

It was only by a bare, nearly severed thread of caution that he maintained a human bearing and speed as he entered through the front door. Esme and Carlisle stood together nearby, both visibly hesitating to intervene—both visibly stricken with worry—Esme stepped toward him, a hand out-stretched, but he could only shake his head again—and Bella, ghostly, stared at him, wary, anxious, from her seat on the couch, surely ignorant of all that occurred prior to Alice’s barrage of pleading—

 _Do you know what trouble you’ve caused?_ He made a beeline and stopped in front of her, standing over her and searching her eyes desperately. _Does a thought pass through your mind at how your presence has wrought such chaos? Are you aware at all? Or on some level do you seek this? What lurks in you that Aro, of all beings, would find you to be a suitable mate?_

Her expression was only confused—maybe concerned—and underneath, over-pale and tired. And in spite of everything, in spite of all the other threads knotting up inside him or binding him to some other awful, inevitable action—her scent still made his throat burn. “Is something wrong?” she asked in a thin, uncertain voice. _Have I done something?_ was the thought he could just _almost_ hear behind her eyes, the thought that he _knew_ must be there.

“ _Yes_ ,” he whispered hoarsely. He thought of that glimpse he had gained from Alice, of a red-eyed Bella marking a white surface in stark black strokes to spell out YES I WOULD PREFER BEING TURNED. _Yes. You have._ “Something is terribly wrong.”

Her brown eyes widened, and her attention split; she turned to look toward the soft footsteps that approached from the corridor.

He closed his eyes as the nearing thoughts, a maelstrom of beneficent worry and alarm, heralded _her_.

“Edward?”

He closed his eyes, yes, and he clenched his teeth. He counted backward from a thousand. He conjured the sensation of a steel rod driven up from his spine through the top of his head. He imagined a human, a faceless instance of the natural order, some woman unknown to him living to an old age, a complete life well-lived before a quiet passing into an endless sleep.

He would not turn to look at her. That he loathed already the idea of her fading from this world, some distant day, only showed how far he had already fallen—how corrupted he already was, or maybe had always been and only now could he truly gauge the depths—

Abandoning some additional layer of caution, he kept his eyes closed as he stalked away and up the stairs. Let the family drama be enough to distract the humans from a strangely superhuman display of environmental awareness. He was tired of this play and the mimicry of them. It was a role that he did not deserve.

* * *

_Bella_

Alice had all the manner of a kicked puppy as she drove them home, brow pinched and lips drooping as she watched the road fly toward them before it disappeared under the tires of her car. Angela, too, had a cloudy expression to match the night sky, and Bella was grateful for the shadowed privacy of the backseat, for all that her eyelids grew heavy in the low light and she had to struggle to stay awake as the drive progressed.

After…Edward…they’d stayed to finish the movie—Alice had made jokes fitting to the happenings therein, and Angela had chuckled at those and otherwise expressed a nostalgic appreciation for the storytelling (“This reminds me of The Twilight Zone,” she’d said two separate times)—but all three were subdued; in time Jasper wandered in, with only some fifteen minutes left of the movie, and looped an arm around Alice’s shoulders. Bella had no idea what to do to try to salvage the night, and she decided effort to do so might make things subtly worse—so she left her companions for the evening to their own counsels as she struggled to digest the events herself.

Charlie sat in the living room when she got home, a familiar paperback Western in hand and a can of beer on the coffee table in front of him. He smiled at her as she dragged herself fully through the front door and hung up her jacket. “Hey, Bells. Have fun?”

A heavy sigh was her answer.

“Oof.” His expression grew sympathetic, and he cocked his head toward the cushion next to him. “Want to join me for a while?”

“Honestly I’m exhausted.” She was too tired to even care about the potential for nocturnal wandering. Bed called to her above all other concerns.

He nodded. “Go get some rest.”

Collapsed into bed—properly changed and ensconced in blankets—she felt the insistent recollections of the evening resolidify before melting again and again into nothing as she fell toward sleep, passing through in turbulent half-conscious waves: the tempest of Edward’s face, his eyes closed as he walked away, and the deeper shadow of Aro’s form in the dark hall above; Alice’s laughter in the car, Alice’s sigh from the front door as she watched her brother ascend the stair, and the plaintive note to Angela’s unaddressed, almost unspoken query; and the edges of the Cullens’ beautiful faces softened by pending heartbreak. These pale and troubled faces beckoned Bella further into darkness, until at last a hazy and fitful sleep swallowed her up.

* * *

_Aro_

Hunting was a satisfying pastime, even if the end result was less than thrilling. Human prey had tended to stop struggling earlier, compared to these other animals, creating less mess—Aro had a new respect for the Olympians’ often clean (if rumpled) state of dress when they returned from hunts of their own. But the actual process of identifying and stalking the creatures of the woods was more exciting than collecting humans had been—and without the cacophony of a lifetime’s thoughts at completion, at that. It was at least something to keep his body busy and his senses occupied as he turned over the state of affairs.

The fox scent he’d caught wind of was recent, but not so fresh as to promise an overly short hunt. A good candidate for his current approach to a three-pipe problem. In Volterra, he would have roped some of his coven-mates into games of cards, or perhaps he would have put a record on and allowed some long-dead composer to ply his senses with pretty sounds—lacking much companionship or entertainment as such (as he felt Renata’s time would be better spent handling the correspondence he ignored), he turned to the forest.

A bit of a shame that if he should come close to Edward, the younger would only turn and flee the other way. He really had so much left to do in his courting, so to speak, of the other telepath, and so long as the humans-of-interest stayed human, any overtures of friendliness were liable to be rebuffed. No progress toward that goal could be made. But where Bella had forbidden him from the many more _creative_ tactics to bringing her over, she had yet to comment at all on the matter of Edward, via Alice, and so he felt freer to brainstorm.

Oh, he recognized well enough that she would be (someday, somehow) displeased if he interfered too… _dramatically_ in Edward’s or Edward’s little human half-mate’s lives, but she couldn’t expect him to act wholly in accordance with her wishes at all times. That would be preposterous, and, in any case, rather difficult to do without a Bella at hand with whom he could speak himself. —But, no, the important part was how absurd it would be for him to bow to all of her whims and foibles—he had been around much, much too long to over-respect the naïve opinions of a being who even in Alice’s sight could not be a day over twenty-five years old—and how many years could have passed then since her turning, in such visions? Not _millennia_ , likely, for Alice to have seen it—yes, much too young to be a master of him—even if his own intuition vibrated with the certainty that one day she would offer him something beyond value. (Was this what an incomplete bond felt like, from the inside? Was this how Carlisle had felt? Somehow Aro couldn’t find any semblance of this feeling in the others’ memories.)

A chill breeze brought him a new wave of the fox’s scent; weaving swiftly through trunks of massive trees still younger than him, he pivoted southward to follow it.

That human, Angela, might now be the key to Edward. How could he use her? Force would not work; he believed Edward, unlike Bella, _would_ negotiate with a hostage taker, but Aro was not confident that he would ever be able to smooth over the resulting animosity. Certainly, it could take centuries; their kind had a long memory for grudge, resentment, and revenge. More flies with honey, after all. —Bella was young enough, changeable enough—he huffed—that had she not made her possible terms both absolute and known to him through Alice, he would have likely, in time, seduced her into forgiveness for whatever actions he would’ve felt were necessary to acquire her. He would have been confident in his ability thereof.

At least, he considered, he could revisit such options if it turned out Alice was playing at more of a game than she claimed to be, and if Bella was not as canny a negotiator as Alice had represented her, so far, to be.

It would occur to Aro some years later that he had failed to consider the possibility that Bella had been unwary enough at a scant seventeen years of age that he could have intervened early, enacted whatever designs he felt were appropriate, and prevented her ever thinking to challenge him as she had through Alice’s sight. Those years later, he would realize that it was not due to a lack of perspicacity that he overlooked this option. Regardless of the reason, these actions did not occur to the present Aro, some three millennia in age, while he was on the trail of a woodland creature.

And there the fox was. Faster than it could hope to anticipate, he leapt forward, scooped it out of the sparse underbrush, and tore into its throat.

He would need to be more delicate with Angela, with Edward, than that. It was always best to be both feared _and_ loved—unfortunately thus far he had often been forced to choose, and he recognized that, as Machiavelli had recorded the wisdom, better to be feared if only one of the two. But, as the repugnant, barely satisfying canid blood coursed into his mouth, he felt the opportunity could be brewing to gain a better share of the Olympians’ love.

After his small meal, as Aro further considered his options and passed idly through the forest in lazy leaps from tree to tree, an impossible scent met him. It cut through the heavy residual odor of the fox clouding his nostrils and lingering on his person; it carried to him on the air like a promise of spring, just as it had when he first caught it in the Olympians’ home. However, it was surely unlikely for Bella to be so far from her home. Intrigued—perplexed—he set off westward on this new trail. It was weak—weaker than the fox’s had been—but pervasive where he found it, as though she had been walking slowly and taking frequent breaks to lean against the trees. And unlike the fox, she left glaringly obvious tracks in the dirt and detritus—in some areas, the ground was disturbed in wider sweeps than the prints leading up to and beyond—she’d also been sitting on the ground, then.

The prints otherwise indicated she was barefoot. _Curiouser and curiouser_. He knew the frailty of human skin. Intimately. The weather was cold enough and the ground hid enough twigs, rocks, and barbs for this to be an exceptionally odd choice for his human to make.

His senses narrowed. The running narrative of his thoughts fell silent. He hunted once more, with new intent. A vital purpose filled him that he had lacked for the fox: his ears strained for the barest slow beating of a hypothermic human heart; he inhaled hungrily for a hint of her scent; and he relied on that peculiar, subtle other-sense that only a few of his kind might come to feel. Muttering it as half a prayer, he demanded with his whole being that fate once again lead him to Isabella Swan.

Time dilated, and after he knew not how long—seconds, minutes, or hours—he found her, cradled in the roots of an old and weathered but towering conifer, curled into herself. He nearly doubted the vision and scent and sound of her before him, for how could she be here? This was no mere hike away from Forks, and to his (admittedly limited) knowledge of her, she was not inclined to do such anyway. He has been wandering from the Cullens’ for hours at superhuman speeds. This was far afield. She could not be here. Yet as he approached and knelt at her side, as her glassy eyes struggled to focus on him, he found himself quite convinced it was her.

“How did you come here?” Carefully, without allowing his too-cool skin to touch hers, he pushed an errant lock of hair away from her face. “Did someone bring you here?”

She didn’t answer. Her irises darted erratically around his face and then past him, to gaze unseeingly at the forest beyond.

“Mia Bella,” he exhaled, “are you asleep?” He hesitated with his hand hovering so close to her face— _what_ he might discover—but wrenched himself away and stood.

He paced, shooting frequent glances her way as he thought: _how am I to handle this?_ Would she remember? If he scooped her up and ran her home, would she recall the wind buffeting their forms as he held her? Would she recall the chill of his body against hers through their clothes? Would she recall the blur of canopy, clouds, and glimpses of stars above? What if she woke fully before he had returned her to her home?

_This would be so much easier if I could just—_

But he could not. The pale, shivering human huddled at his feet had forbidden it.

Or had she?

Aro had promised Alice he would avoid turning Bella only if it were not to prevent her mortal death or significant injury.

If he waited at her side tonight…how long would he need to wait? At what point would only one option remain, and how would she ever know he had arrived any earlier than that?

Something heavy and dark and velvety curled through his thoughts in this way, reaching up to pull him down to its depths. He closed his eyes at the vertigo so inspired; he could feel the phantom sensations, borne of the patterns of thousands of mortal lives, of his stomach drop and his heart jump in his chest. She could join him this very night. The notion split his mind apart. The contrapuntal choruses that erupted in his thoughts buzzed and clamored their urging and objections, a parliament for decision, and gradually the tendrils of velvet loosened their hold on him, and he felt the dream of _Bella now_ drain away. It was too soon. He had time enough to save her mortal life, and so—and so— _and so_ —he ought.

She was silent, her breathing and heart beating inaudible to him. With a flash of panic, he fell forward, eyes opened, to check on her before he could make full sense of the scene. But only empty air, a gnarled trunk, and his own hands on bare dirt occupied the view before him. Her scent lingered nearly as strong as before, but Bella was gone.

He righted himself, spun one way and another; he scoured the woods around from his place at the old tree for any sign of her, but there was nothing. So on foot and knee and hand, in a slinking cat-like crouch and in leaps to the tops of trunks and limbs, he combed this portion of earth and forest for her. But she was nowhere. He circled back to the tree that’d half-heartedly sheltered her, and there he knelt where she had lain. Still the scent of her. Fading, slowly. But still there.

Never had he hallucinated such, in so much detail. The errant visions of her had always been obscured sight and perhaps sound, never the soft strands of hair on his fingertips nor the smell of her. He looked down at his hands as though they had perhaps betrayed him, and he breathed deeply to perhaps confirm only forest-scent. But no. His memories were clear—his senses were clear—either he was going truly mad, or she had been no hallucination at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3spooky5me.
> 
> (Let me know if there are any typos or anything, y'all. LOVE!)


	7. Chapter 7

_Alice_

“I saw Bella in the woods,” Aro announced to Alice as soon as the front door closed behind him. He stood in the entry, clothed in his habitual suit (currently a navy, nearly black) like a personified chunk of night broken off from the morass of darkness outside. Frighteningly still, he would read to a human, but to her eyes he held restrained tension—nearly vibrating with it. Aro’s compressed agitation influenced each of the occupants of the living room to answer in their own ways: Renata came up to his side promptly and silently, ready to act at his order; Jasper straightened in his seat at her own side, in anticipation of variable moods; but Alice just cocked her head and clasped her hands on her crossed legs.

“Is that so?” she said. “Odd for her to be out so late.”

He glowered at her indifferent response. But she was beginning to get the feel of him, to the maximum extent that one could get the feel of a thousands-year-old entity in less than a month’s time. _It probably helps that I can, you know, see the future and already knew about this conversation._ He glowered, yes, but in this instance, his manner threatened more than he would enact. He was just worried, after all, that Bella might become an accidental meal. If Alice hadn’t been so anxious herself, she might’ve found the uneasiness to be a humanizing trait for the elder vampire to exhibit. As it was, however, he was just another stick of dynamite for her to juggle.

His frown dissolved to a bored neutrality. _Too late, Aro! I already know you care_. “Tell your family to be careful when hunting.” A hiss flared subtly around his next words. “Especially Edward.”

She put a staying hand on her husband’s arm to preempt the growl that might come. This act of restraint was a new habit of theirs, likely to persist for as long as they had these guests. _Love having autocrats for company_. “Will do.”

Aro looked at her for a long moment before he nodded, turned away, and went for the stairs—she could almost see how his robe would have twirled with the motion, had he been dressed for his court in Volterra. Renata trailed him, as she so often did. When their steps had passed beyond the stairway and were muffled more fully by the upstairs hallway rug and other layer of division—flooring, joists, ceiling—granting the couple an end to the fortunately brief episode of the Italians’ presence, Jasper sank back down into the large chair they had claimed for the evening.

Reflexively, she melted onto him, curling her arms around his neck and shoulders and burying her face in the crook. In return, he wrapped an arm around her. Softly, radiating a general serenity, he ran his hand in comforting circles over her shoulder. He couldn’t address her problems directly—could not offer even specific reassurance verbally, because she could not yet tell him so much of what plagued her—but she hummed in gratitude for the care he could and did offer her.

A new, thick knot of worry sat in Alice’s stomach like a broken anchor and had ever since she had seen Aro returning to warn the family to mind their actions. She hadn’t known Bella would be in the woods, not until she had seen Aro telling her of his sighting. This was bad. This was, truly, no good. This was, in fact, mildly disastrous. Because Alice had thought she’d been looking out for Bella specifically, and if Bella had decided to go into the woods, why hadn’t she seen it?

* * *

_Bella_

“There are all kinds of _spooky_ stories,” her childhood acquaintance, Jacob Black, said, drawing out the _oo_ in ghostly stereotype. “Strange beasts in the woods or the waves. People going missing. That kind of thing.”

Jacob and his two friends—Quil and Embry, he’d introduced, each with long hair like Jake’s—led Bella and Angela along the shore. Shouts followed after them, in cheer and exuberance, of Jessica and company yet enjoying their games in the water.

Thinking fondly on bright deserts and tame, self-contained swimming pools, Bella’d forgone direct participation. She was content to be witness to their fun. Angela had ended up next to her, though Bella wasn’t really sure why, as the other girl had shown up, with Jessica, equally wet-suited and ready for questionably autumnal ocean sport. But the trio now at their sides and a handful of other Quileute youths had appeared not long after the Forks high schoolers had arrived at the beach, and when they did, and Bella had tolerated a surprise hug from Jacob Black, Angela had quietly swapped positions with the older others from Jake’s party, letting the relative novelty of their presence distract the Forksian pack from her own splitting away. At least, that’s how Bella would describe it. She wasn’t a mind reader. Maybe Angela hadn’t been so _intentionally_ socially careful.

Hazy these days, nigh permanently foggy, Bella’s thoughts spiraled out to the absent Cullens and Hales in any spare moment. (“They don’t come to stuff like this,” Angela had murmured to her, when she’d caught Bella’s eyes searching the road and the party. She hadn’t needed to say who “they” were.) It was too easy to prompt Jake for local tales—the opportunity for a new perspective was too tempting, even though she recognized that it was unlikely that the reservation kids would either know much of or give two sneezes about the eccentric but WASPish Cullen family. She wouldn’t ask after them directly, with Angela side-eyeing her as they walked along the beach, as Jake and Quil and Embry eagerly offered up scraps of ghosts and UFOs and Bigfoot.

She might prompt them for rumors of organized crime, though, or cults. Maybe spies. The supernatural wasn’t really in her theoretical framework for Cullenology, and Embry’s insistence that he had seen a Sasquatch when he was six lay firmly outside both her interests and her model of reality.

“Oh!” Jake exclaimed and stopped suddenly. He turned and looked back at those attacking the water with body and board yards behind. Bella and the others watched him in silence, his hand having come up in a _shush_ motion. When he spoke again, his eyes sparkling and fixed again on his audience, his voice was hush. “I can tell you about the _cold ones_.”

“Ugh,” Embry intoned. “ _Ugh_.”

Quil, meanwhile, nodded enthusiastically.

Angela frowned and shot a nervous glance toward Bella, who returned the look with raised brows. _I didn’t say anything? Why are you looking at me?_ But the other girl only looked away. _Alright then._

Bella switched to Jake, humoring him. “The cold ones? I’ve never heard anything like that. Is it a Quileute story?”

Jake shook his head and smirked. “What, an Indian guy tells you something you don’t know, and it’s gotta be like ancient wisdom or something?”

Bella only sighed.

“Bella wouldn’t know. No one tells that story at school anymore.” Angela looked down at her feet as she idly kicked at the sand, arms crossed. “Not since…not since Bella’s dad spoke at that assembly.”

“Charlie did what? Why?” This was out of left field. No, this was more than out of left field. This was from left outer space. What did Jake’s scary story have to do with her dad?

Jake sobered. “I didn’t know that.”

Angela looked up again, grimacing.

This sudden mystery burned like magnesium in Bella’s mind’s eye. “Angela, _what happened_?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t tell you because it’s so much _awful nonsense_ , and I didn’t think you would, y’know, think it was credible anyway, and I figured your dad would have told you anyway probably—”

“ _Angela_.” The girl flinched silent. Bella took a deep breath and mindfully softened her voice. “I’m not going to be angry or anything. I’m sure you had good reasons. I just want to know what this is about.”

“Okay.” She breathed. She nodded. “Okay. You know, like I said, there’s been a lot of speculation about the Cullens over the years.”

Bella externally nodded and internally tried to restrain the thrill that this revelation of connection from her obsession to these “cold ones” provided her. _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it_ , sang dopamine itself _. There’s more to discover!_ She smothered it.

Angela continued. “The rumors about the Cullens and Hales were way worse than they are now. There were so many, and some of them were just so outlandish and _bad_. And then one day one of the seniors—this was only a few months after the Cullens moved here, and he doesn’t even live in Forks anymore—said that Jasper, like…attacked him.”

“Holy crap,” Jake muttered. Quil was riveted. Embry was bored, pushing sand into piles with his foot and then flattening them.

“He walked back the story later. He said Jasper just, like—threatened him? But not really? Like posturing? But the guy did say that Jasper had definitely shoved him, and when he did his hand was _frigid_ and hard as a rock. But people didn’t really _listen_ to the new version of events except to fixate on that weirdness. They started saying Jasper was some kind of monster and that he almost killed him. These other jerks started trying to pick fights with the family and stuff. They began vandalizing their cars, painting stuff like ‘freaks’ and ‘zombies’ on them. Finally the school admins had enough and called Chief Swan in to a special assembly on, like, anti-bullying. The troublemakers quieted down after that—apparently the chief had talked to them and their families—and then they graduated, and no one’s talked about it since.”

A moment of silence stole over the little group.

Quil broke it with a whistle. “I didn’t know any of that. Folks talk about the Cullens and the ‘cold ones’ stuff sometimes, but I don’t think anyone around here really _means_ it. Not like that.”

Angela looked out at the ocean, her gaze distant and sad. “I don’t think they really ‘meant’ it. I think they were just taking the opportunity to be mean to the…outcasts.”

Bella felt about half-phased out of reality.

Angela glanced over at her hesitantly. “I’m sorry for keeping this from you.”

She shook her head. Sort of. “It’s…fine, I think.” She shook her head more firmly. “I mean, what did they think they were? Walking, talking frozen corpses? That’s ridiculous.” _Totally_.

“Not to interrupt,” Jake interjected, “but why is this a big deal? ‘Cause your dad was involved?”

Angela hesitated. Bella sighed and rubbed her forehead with both hands.

“Not really. I…am suspicious of the Cullens. The whole family, really.” Bella shrugged at the trio of teenagers who were out of the loop vis-à-vis her opinion of the family. Preferably so. She didn’t really want to tell them too much about it; enough to have Angela eyeing her sanity. “I think they’re weird in a way that just—should be explainable? I swear, there’s _something_ about them that if I could just figure it out—” Angela coughed. “Anyway, Ang and I have talked about it some, that’s all. But it’s—it’s really okay. I don’t think _this_ is anything other than some assholes picking at difference.”

The others accepted Bella’s judgment; Angela smiled, a little, in relief. The topic and that of any other so-storied entities were dropped for the rest of the gathering. The five teenagers wandered along the shore for a while longer, skipping into a discussion of movies and TV shows, before turning and rejoining those further down the beach. The sky darkened as evening fell. Those collected started a small campfire, turned on a portable radio, and steadily ate through all the food they’d brought along. In this way the hours pulled Bella with them as they passed, lulling her into a relaxation she hadn’t felt since (she noted with some bittersweet surprise) Phoenix, like after a day trip into the desert with Renée, when her mother’s friends would have a bonfire after sunset.

Those many hours later, and a couple more besides, Bella sat at her computer at home and agonized for all of five minutes before adding “really cold?” and “hard as rock?” to her file, underneath the “can walk around with eyes closed…” she’d half-heartedly added after the awkward movie night. A couple minutes more of agony and “attacked someone?” joined them. _This doesn’t make me the same as those jerks. Really. I don’t want to hurt you. Maybe see you brought to justice…but not, like, tortured, or needlessly antagonized._ Looking over her growing list of oddities surrounding the family, she could not quell a sense of unease. An image came together in her thoughts of the older Italian, Aro, led to a police car in handcuffs—it would make the local news, and when she imagined him staring into the cameras, it was with the same evaluating impenetrability as he had fixed on her in the Cullens’ upstairs hall.

It evaporated when she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Her ideas of organized crime were bred from bits and pieces of _The Godfather_ movies and cartoons growing up (offers one can’t refuse, “It’ll be curtains for ya, nyah,” and so on), and she was not much a fan of the idea of anyone like that being arrested in Charlie’s own jurisdiction. Better her family not be subject to mafia reprisals. _You know, if that’s something they really do—and if I even had any influence on getting people like that caught or not…_

And lurking under those anxieties were dreams of spindly figures and childhood fears of red eyes in the night. _Monsters aren’t real_. _Not like that, and not like those assholes were making up about the Cullens._ She spun in her chair and stared at her bed. _Just because I’m sleepwalking again…that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve just been stressed._

She didn’t feel stressed at all now. The ocean and her friends had done their work. Her bed beckoned, promising comfort and reprieve from trance wanderings and infamous families. _I haven’t seen anything in years,_ she reassured herself as she changed into pajamas, decided to answer the bed’s call. _Nothing like that is real._

She smiled, her thoughts echoing Charlie’s voice as they had her first day in Forks:

_And, in any case, I’m Isabella the Brave._

* * *

_Alice_

The knot of worry migrated throughout Alice Friday night and all weekend up until Monday, floating up from her stomach through her chest to her throat and back down again. She spent nearly all of the weekend hours scouring vague futures, near and far, for Bella Swan. Perhaps she had thought before that Bella was uncommonly indecisive or, at this stage in her life, maybe rather dull; the young woman hardly showed up at all, even if Alice was looking so specifically for her. Since Aro’s revelation, she knew better.

Bella appeared to resist Alice’s sight. Passively, no doubt—and unexpectedly, when Alice had seen so many highly salient visions of the girl before now, but it had become apparent that Bella did seem to share some of the immunity to Alice’s power that she had more thoroughly shown to have to Edward’s. Alice kept at it, though, even through school on Monday, begging fate or fortune or both for whatever scraps they would cast down to her regarding the teenager.

She could fool the humans well enough—or, she knew from quick checks of their futures that none of them would care enough about her strange behavior to really _theorize_ —but her little pauses, hesitations, and mind-wanderings were definitely obvious and significant to her family and to Jasper, both due to their enhanced senses and their years’ worth of knowing her. (How long would they trust her to make these decisions? Where were their breaking points, compared to Edward’s now long past?)

Lunch that day was aggravating. Having Bella right in front of her but being unable to _see_ much of anything about the woman was peculiarly frustrating, and Alice wondered if Edward had felt like this all the time he’d spent around their human acquaintance. With an unidentified pang, she pushed the thought away.

The humans were talking about their visit to La Push. Alice had seen but little of it—only enough to know that Bella had heard at least a bit of the story of Jazz’s incident a while back. Ordinarily, her first priority would be to let her family know the new human had learned of something suspicious. They could carefully arrange some op to ease any of her concerns that might arise from the rumors—maybe heat up one of Rosalie’s hands under a lamp, just enough to make it humanly warm, and put on a scene of Rose accidentally running into Bella in the hall—maybe Bella would trip, maybe Rose would help her stand up…

 _This_ reality, whatever timeline they existed in at the moment, had no use for reducing suspicion. If Alice decided to tell her family, her glimpses of Bella’s panic in the forest, of a chasing growl, disappeared, and who knew what risky episode would take its place in time? Better the devil one knew. Aro would be pissed if Alice let all the cats out, but she believed Bella needed to hear the meows coming from the bag, at least. All that the increasingly rare visions of future-Bella had told her implied this. If only that mirage of her not-friend had stated it outright, maybe this knot in Alice’s stomach would never have coalesced.

Two more devils she knew were in the living room that afternoon when Alice, Jasper, and siblings returned from school. Their Volterran guests had borrowed a chess set and were making use of it on the coffee table; Renata sat on the couch, and Aro, in his own fashion, managed to maintain some regality even as he sat cross-legged on the floor across. Reflexively, Alice checked the outcome of the game—Aro would lose. _No_ , as she took in the state of the board—Aro would let Renata win, and she found herself paused some feet away to watch the game in real time.

Aro glanced at her and winked.

 _It’s incredibly disturbing to us peasants when you do things like that._ She was tempted to say it aloud, but she could better afford not to bait a cobra, at the moment. Jazz lingered for a minute, but when she smiled and nodded at him, he gave her hand a squeeze and at vampiric speed went to their room. Tensions were low. He, too, likely felt he had a better handle on the behaviors of their guests after so many days, and while they were dangerous, they did not seem to warrant constant, direct monitoring.

But Alice would watch their chess game and learn what she could about them—a rare opportunity to witness despots at play.

Vampires played chess faster than humans did, but only to a point—they were still not as inherently good as, say, an artificial intelligence trained to the purpose. A vampire who had never played before and who did not enjoy strategy games would likely be beaten by any human with much experience or inclination. But she suspected Aro might be approaching AI level, if he had “met” enough people, humans or vampires, who had much expertise. In another world, she might want to play against him, to see how her own approach fared—but in this, she was too busy playing a much more serious game.

Her prediction came true. Aro lost; Renata won. “Thank you,” the guard murmured and inclined her head to her master. “I understand now.”

Alice was slightly baffled by this exchange, even if she had seen it coming—she decided to ask Aro what it was about, and—

Vision: Aro smiling at her, apparently genuinely amused. She read his lips: “If I don’t teach people around me some of what I know, they get dreadfully boring after a time.”

 _Well, that makes sense, time to leave._ She turned and made for the hall at a polite but firm speed. As she superhumanly power-walked, she had the lingering feeling that Aro had permitted her to go and that Renata was glad to see her do so.

She wanted them gone and for her family to have the sanctity of their home back. She wanted to hang out with Bella—human Bella would be fine for that, for now and for rather a long time, and they could be good friends even if Alice would have to be careful about The Secret the whole time. Like she did of Aro, she knew she herself could be patient with enough motivation to be. But in the few fuzzy, head-aching images she could now pry free from Bella’s future, she got the distinct impression that Bella herself _couldn’t_ be and that allowing the teenager to pursue her own course was a gamble. There would be blood and the bearing of teeth. There would be fear and wrath and struggle in the cold, dark woods. Yet THE FOREST WILL TURN OUT OKAY, Bella’d written to her from that heady time of clear-seeing. And I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT.

_Bella, is this really what you want?_

Well, probably not. No one would choose such a dangerous path if there were a better option. She closed her eyes and thought of stars and of sunlight shining down on Bella and Aro among a human crowd. Their paths still led there– _most_ of the time, _flickeringly_ , which was just what gambling _was_ , and Alice hated it.

THE FOREST WILL TURN OUT OKAY.

I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT.

These words became her spine, they became a force of will to go out into this world, where her own spine curled in and her will quivered and paced at the front door and refused to leave. _You’re taking too big of risks_ , the nervous part of her said in a voice like her absent brother’s. Under the weight of these considerations and the state of her family, “going out into the world” was only existing in her own home—often, as now, she sat at one of the computer desks in the office, attempting to fill her idle attention with the pleasant images of dresses and skirts and blouses from online retailers. Bella’s words gave her the ground, though shaky, to do _anything_ besides hide in her room or pull an Edward and run off to the forest to camp—as Bella was still a living human, as Edward was still generally around, and as Aro was not bent solely on conquest or punishment. If there was a plan, things were following it. The sticks of dynamite stayed aloft, even as their fuses hissed and crackled and teased disaster.

_A lot of good a promise of forgiveness does me if you die, Bella._

_And why_ hasn’t _Edward left?_ she wondered as she scrolled, dispassionately, through an online storefront. He could have gone to visit their friends in Alaska and freed himself of the current burdens of life in Forks. She could only determine so much about his state of mind through her sight, without being able to ask him directly, and though she was as certain as she could be that he would not really leave—only escape to the woods—she did not understand why. Perhaps he was already too attached to the human.

Tired of looking only for her not-yet-best-friend, Alice decided to satisfy her own curiosity for a moment. She thought of Angela Weber.

Bella in a generic bedroom met her sight instead, and in pure aggravation Alice crushed the computer mouse in her hand.

Vision: TELL ARO NOT TO CAST ANGELA AS THE LUCY TO MY MINA, in big, blocky letters on a glowing white surface. Another glimpse—Bella among towering evergreens, Aro two or three yards distant—the two conversing. Miraculously, a third: Aro _in_ Forks, standing outside a _church_ at night, the _Lutheran_ church—

Then they were gone, the images removed by the same capricious hand that prevented her from seeing Bella much at all. She now had only her (truthfully quite clear) memory of them.

 _Do you have a sense of humor?_ she asked the laws of physics themselves, especially those best described in terms of probability—those laws she had considered her friends, after so many years of sharing “dreams” with them. One could call them, collectively, fate. She grumbled at it. She cursed it.

She loosened her grip on the mangled computer mouse. _Can I at least see Angela herself before I go pick a fight with someone thirty times my age?_

Vision: Angela sitting on the floor of her living room, poster board and markers spread around her and a twin brother on each side. “The Water Cycle” read along the top of the board.

Good. That was good. An Angela overhelping her brothers with homework was a living, happy Angela.

Alice stood from the desk chair, the force of her rise setting it spinning, and aimlessly brushed her hands over the front of the day’s rather frilly skirt. Jasper was at the doorway already, beckoned no doubt by the sound of technology-directed violence and the feeling of his mate’s frustration. He would _ask_ , ordinarily, but much of their current communication was nonverbal, given their guests—and so, reading the set of her shoulders or perhaps brow, he only extended his hand to her, which she gratefully took. His warm and solemn eyes, the sincere gesture, these spoke enough of his support.

 _I love your capacity for sombriety, Jazz, but I miss fun_ , she thought as they walked at human pace through hall and up stairway. It wouldn’t be too much longer before fun returned; she just had to be patient through all the un-fun stuff, like the conversation she was about to have which she could not quite see the outcome of. In a show of polite ritual, she knocked on Aro’s door. She knew he was in, and she knew he knew they were outside his room again, but she gathered that the Volturi liked the stateliness of some human custom, to the extent that moving slowly and pretending their senses were weak lent deference and gravity to the kings’ position. _Look,_ etiquette said: _No tricks._ Rather, some measure of slow-going was the least threatening manner to approach any other vampire, so perhaps more accurately, any of the Volturi, by their mere presence, told visitors instead: _Come forward slowly with your hands up._

“Come in,” Aro called through the door, just loud enough to be heard by the couple. So they did.

Aro half-turned from where he sat at his laptop at the guest room’s small desk, backlit by the glowing screen and the purpling embers of early evening through the window. His fingers flew over the keys at hardly more than average human speed and force to preserve the lifespan of the machine and its components. In his suit—wearing a tie for once, with a tasteful emblematic pin—one could almost take him to be only a wealthy businessman traveling through, and Alice took in this incongruity to his true nature with a roiling mix of amusement and wariness in her chest. When he spoke, it was with such a façade of professional air. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Alice?”

If Jazz was bothered by this reduction to being her accessory in the visit, she couldn’t tell.

“I have a message to deliver.”

His hands stilled above the laptop’s base, and he angled himself to turn his head entirely toward them. “Carry on. I’m listening.”

Deliberation had produced no better way for her to put it than the woman’s words themselves, especially given Alice had the feeling she didn’t have all of the context that future-Bella’s admonition built upon. Perhaps, in some meaningful and ultimately helpful way, Aro already did. Best to give it straight. “She says to ‘not cast Angela as the Lucy to her Mina.’”

He grew still. She felt Jasper tense, his grip on her hand tightening, but Aro’s gaze went past them, peering into some unseen consideration.

“Did she offer any consequence for such a literary turn of events?” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his still-distant eyes. “No promise to ignore me forever?”

A falling in her stomach—he was settling on no decisions, and the consequences remained uncharted—but she shook her head, in honesty.

“I see.” He turned back to his task wholly. The clacking of the keys resumed. “Thank you.”

 _A dismissal?_ A second, two seconds, three, four—he said nothing more. Jasper nudged her toward the door. _Is that all?_

Lost in baffled grasping for the pending results of this exchange, she let him lead her through the house and out the back, where he pulled her into a smooth run through the trees.

 _I’d expected bargaining or refusal or a denial of any ill intent toward Angela in the first place._ She had seen glimpses to support each of these outcomes, though they had been tenuous. Now, none had come to pass. Nothing had come to pass. _I’m so tired of surprises._

Her scrying for Angela’s wellbeing still produced only reasonably happy and healthy images of the girl spending time with friends or family in countless mundane, _alive_ ways (and now with no errant images of future-Bella giving orders)—so she was not alarmed, no. No need to enact any dramatic plans to ensure the human’s survival.

Anyway, if it came to Angela being turned, they would all have to leave the Forks area quickly and for many years—and wouldn’t that work against Aro’s designs for Bella? Yet many brief visions—brief not due to any Bella-like difficulty to viewing Aro’s future, but instead a purposefully wide cast of the net of Alice’s sight, seeking breadth, not depth—showed Aro and Renata driving in their subdued black car through various locales in Forks: near Angela’s father’s church, past the high school, through Angela’s neighborhood—Alice recognized the pale yellow house they parked for a while in front of as the Webers’ from her earlier checking in on Angela’s path. For what reason would they nearly stalk the teenager if not to capture her? Too many decisions in that path were nebulous, and she could see no farther. She suspected Aro was avoiding concrete plans in this course of affairs intentionally to obscure her sight.

His other plans, though, stretched longer, and even if she could not see anything to do with Bella, conjuring popcorn visions (quick and numerous) of his other doings was simple. Aro and Renata aboard a plane had been a welcome sight since she had first beheld it yesterday, and that future still awaited them; Italian newspapers in the airport where they landed helpfully told Alice when she could, currently, expect their guests to leave them, and she was cautiously— _cautiously_ , for Aro was so full of _surprises_ —optimistic that they would be out of her family’s hair in not more than a few weeks’ time, and he would have neither Angela nor Bella in tow (nor Edward, nor herself—the invitation he would extend her was to be denied, naturally).

Would it be too risky to force him to show his hand regarding Angela while he was still in Forks? Was it too risky not to? And how would she? She was under no impression that the human herself mattered in particular to Aro—but Edward did, be it Edward’s own ability or his potential for interference in the matter of Bella, and she did regret that the vision of Angela and Edward had come upon her so suddenly in _such_ an inconvenient location as her own house—and felt a bit miffed that her brother had pressed her about it in the Volterrans’ hearing. No harm, no foul, for now, but if Edward’s lapse of forethought ended up causing Angela’s _actual_ death instead of her turning, because the whole business had given Aro _ideas_ —

Well, okay, she probably wouldn’t be too angry at him, ‘cause he would probably torture himself for like a couple of centuries over it, and she found it hard to be angry at someone who did stuff like that, especially when it was her best-friend-brother with whom she really wanted to make up—

She would still be pretty darn annoyed with him, anyway.

Jasper slowed to a stop. He’d brought them rather far into the woods, though of course away from any direction that these days tended to lead toward Edward, but they were too near the house to hunt. He was quiet at her side, as she continued to scan the future with her questions in mind—until he fell backward onto the forest floor, startling a gasp and a laugh from her. He closed his eyes.

 _Maybe some surprises are okay. Little ones._ The annoyance and confusion of Aro-and-everything faded away at once. Alice crouched next to her mate, focused entirely on the present for a time. He lay perfectly still, pale skin nearly glowing against the dark ground, his own scent entwined with conifer and earth. “Oh no. You’ve died. Who would do this to my belovéd.”

Her tone was flat; his lips twitched. He opened his eyes and adopted a sorrowful expression. His voice trembled in ghostly exaggeration. “My wife was too busy trying to take over the world, and I got really bored and died. It’s very tragic. I am a very tormented spirit.”

“Jazz, I can’t believe you.” Alice put on her best serious face. Jasper, too near to the good humor lurking behind it, reluctantly broke into a grin—his power could cut both ways, and she took special joy in exploiting that, demolishing his poker face whenever she could with the sheer force of her own feelings in moments like this. “You didn’t tell me you had a wife! _Introduce us!”_

But he shook his head and chuckled, reaching up with one hand to stroke her cheek. “Too late. Can’t make introductions if I’m a ghost.”

She leaned into his hand and reached down to run her fingers through his hair. They fell silent, each taking pleasure in the other’s care. Jasper’s eyes slipped shut again.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said softly.

He hummed. “Can I ask what for?”

 _Not really. Or, I can’t really answer._ “I don’t like any of this.”

He opened one eye briefly. “Well, it’ll take a real long time to get rid of all these trees…maybe you can get used to them?”

She’d seen it coming—literally, as for all that she liked to leave immediate conversations like this at least partially unknown, she could only do so much to prevent visions. But things were always _better_ when they actually happened. For one, she got to hear his voice render the gentle teasing he tended to share only with her. She smiled. “Thank you.”

He smiled as well—perhaps because he could feel her expression change against his hand, or perhaps because he could feel her relief and gratitude surge with his ability even if he didn’t see her smile. “How ‘bout that ‘thank you’? Can you tell me what _it’s_ for?”

“For trusting me.” She caught his hand in her own and held it loosely as she settled onto the ground next to him. He ran his thumb over her knuckles in response.

As she stared up at the stars and allowed visions of the future to again cloud her inner sight, Alice held fast to the feeling of his warmth beside her and to her gratitude for his leading her into these woods, that he would give her a way to run away from everything when she could not truly do so.

* * *

_Bella_

She was looking for something. What was it, again? Night-darkened silhouettes of unfamiliar trees were not it, though she dutifully considered each of those that surrounded her, just in case. The slightly brighter sky, spattered here and there between the limbs and boughs and needles above, shone with stars and no moon; regardless, she did not seek it. (The sky was clear, though, and the lack of clouds felt like a good omen—but why couldn’t she have seen a cloudless daytime sky with a sun? Did she hunt that, then—the sun? Maybe.)

A laugh pulled her attention back to ground. (She couldn’t feel the dirt on her feet, even though looking down confirmed her bare toes wiggling thereupon. She might’ve been floating along, the way she could feel only the air and nothing solid.) Another laugh, quiet and chuffling, flit against her ears, like they were right _there_ —

She spun around. “You. You’re what I’m looking for.”

The pale, lithe, long-limbed figure towered by a whole two or three feet over her, their smooth, colorless body naked but featureless—humanoid but not human. Their mouth was small but quirked upward at the edges, an imitation of a smile that did not reach their large black eyes, _too_ large—

“Why do you keep bringing me here?” Bella asked. She couldn’t remember where she’d been before, but she had been with this being before—many times now, just like when she’d been a kid—

“As always, I have things to teach you, child.” Their voice was hardly more than silence, a rasp, the skittering of dead leaves against concrete. They reached out with a gray hand, only two fingers and a thumb, like a maimed spider, toward her forehead.

Bella flinched back. “No. No more. I don’t even remember—wherever I go not-here, this isn’t there either—”

Their hand hung frozen between them. “Irrelevant. You know what matters. You learn what matters. Come forward.”

“Why?” she pled, her voice cracked. “Why tell me about creatures I will never meet? That aren’t _here_? I can’t take it.”

“You have. They are. You will.” Their smile vanished, leaving their slit of a mouth in a slight frown. In an unsettling echo of human gesture, they wiggled their fingers, beckoning Bella back toward them. “I mean no harm. You must be ready. Already my presence grows thin. Already these excursions waste me. There is no time, child. It will be solar years again. Please. Your mind is addled by my effort to meet with you, but you must understand my sincerity. You must learn. From me. From them.”

Her vision blurred, rendering the other a fuzzy phantom. Bella blinked rapidly and wiped away the tears that escaped. A burning in her chest and head responded to their words, urging Bella to accept once more their offer, forcing her feet forward before she could stop them. “Damn you.”

Their fingers were cold against her head and carried with them a faint scent of gunpowder. They traced patterns against her skin, and as the familiar scenes began to flash through her mind’s eye, Bella held her breath—she always did. Strange stars, strange blood, strange sky, strange eyes—amber blackening to obsidian, a sky of twisting black clouds, diamonds glittering embedded in marble flesh, blood spilling from torn and split skin, laughing mouths painted red with it, heavy perfume, the burnt and blasted ruins of an unknown city, stars clear above—

She could hear their voice as though her own thoughts, now, and she loathed them for the violation:

_Everything will change, Isabella. But I will make it as painless as I can._

At this, their hand dropped to their side.

The images faded from her thoughts, slipping away even as she stubbornly clung to them—though she knew that while they appeared to dissolve, they resided _underneath_ , burrowing somewhere beyond her conscious reach.

Full sensation returned to her body; she could feel her feet on the ground and felt a pointless desire for shoes, but since that conversation with…somebody… _they_ had forbidden Bella stopping to put on shoes that could track evidence—(“Your feet will be fine,” they said.)—and so Bella would walk out of the house (What house? Whose house?) and into the woods on bare feet to meet her abduction.

“Is this the last yet?” Bella demanded, wiping fresh tears from her cheeks. She hated that the question came out petulant.

The being’s face was blank, but their voice was bittersweet. “You may regret your wish for an end to this time. And not yet, no.” They began their customary slow walk toward a nearby tree. “But soon.”

Bella did not ask another question nor did she complain further, knowing that anything else would be ignored (or, at best, would only call forth their loathsome, sad, breathy laughter.)

They stepped up to the tree, sluggishly embraced the trunk, and pressed their body against it. Gray tendrils sprouted along their own trunk and limbs, braiding together and into the bark, unraveling their form like so many worms and pulling them entirely into the old evergreen until there was no sign they had been there other than Bella’s own presence. The tree itself looked no different from before, and Bella believed the dryad did not linger for long in any one of its hosts.

The cold of the night had already begun to bite at her bare hands and feet and ears, though she knew—or did she? Did she just, perversely, _trust_?—that no permanent damage would come to her when she had so recently received the dryad’s…blessing. So she sank into the cold, allowed it to fog her mind and numb her senses. The sooner she fell into unconsciousness, the sooner the dryad’s command would fade and she would wake wherever it was she actually belonged. _Maybe before that I’ll see that person again,_ she thought.

She had the inkling that it was odd to see a man in a suit in these woods, but she had absolutely zero recollected evidence for that judgment—and it didn’t matter much anyway, when she was succumbing to hypothermia and bound to the dryad’s order for silence. She had thought he was a hallucination the first time. Better for him, likely, for her to continue acting so.

If only she could ask him why he was here whenever he showed up. _He_ certainly seemed baffled by _her_.

 _Does the dryad know how often he’s around where they’ve been?_ Probably. The dryad knew, like, everything. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were getting him to show up on purpose, somehow, though she had no idea why they would do that.

Bella huddled against the base of a tree— _not_ the one the dryad had entered—and reflected on the exchange with the dryad that she already could not quite remember, and on the better recalled actions and words of the strange man who would sometimes visit her, until finally sleep—or something deeper—claimed her.

* * *

Bella woke with vague dream scenes fading from her mind—a tree was talking to her? Weird—and immediately felt reluctant to leave the warmth and comfort of her bed. Sometimes it felt like she had _just_ gone to bed when her alarm went off—

A chill sparked in her bones, and she sat up abruptly, letting the blanket and sheet slip off her torso and arms. She pushed them forward and looked down at her body—clothed in pajamas, entirely. That was a good sign. It was wholly unambiguous what had occurred those days she woke up dressed, to whatever extent, in day clothes. On those disturbing mornings, she often woke in the camisole top she slept in but also jeans, or sometimes a sweater and her pajama pants—and once she’d woken in her jacket, a bathing suit, and a long skirt that she hadn’t even known she owned.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed—but halted midway. There were brown smudges of dirt on her heels—she grabbed her ankles and bent her legs to see the bottoms of her feet. There was dirt between her toes.

And, a tiny voice complained, surely in her bedding as well. She was dismayed at the laundry she would now need to do, but significantly moreso at the reason why.

At least she wasn’t tired. Whatever had happened last night—she’d managed to sleep enough.

Bella had made herself as busy as possible, these last few weeks, as exhausting herself seemed to make the sleepwalking less likely to happen. Friends, homework, dinners with Charlie—if she had thrown herself into these usual activities with more gusto, she was fairly sure no one noticed, as her chronic fatigue would be much more apparent to them than anything else. _Right now_ , she felt well-rested, and the difference in just how her eyes welcomed the light through her window instead of watering at the brightness—in how the old, colorful papers and posters pinned to her wall seemed like a welcome instead of an assault—in even how the dirt on her feet and sheets bothered her but did not depress or alarm her as it might have—these were the benefits of sleep, and having them now highlighted to her how often she was lately a husk.

“Maybe I’m being abducted be aliens,” she mused aloud, with no small amount of irony. But the words called to mind a fleeting glimmer of large black eyes in night-dim forest light, and with trembling hands clenching in her bedclothes, she repeated the words more quietly. A purposeful shake of her head warped into an involuntary shudder, and she pushed herself out of the bed, nearly stumbling to the floor in her hurry to abandon a place of bad feeling beyond merely her bed itself.

The idea lingered still. She considered it again. Angela, her new benchmark for sanity, would not like this hypothesis. “Go to the doctor, Bella,” she might even say, if she knew the extent of Bella’s troubles.

She should probably do that. Get her head scanned. But that would mean telling Charlie, now wouldn’t it? The idea of his worry, his concern, pained her. She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want him to have to deal with it. When she’d had nightmares and terrors as a child…that’d been enough. She didn’t want to do that to either of her parents again.

* * *

_Aro_

Though he had spoken to Alice about it—requested she get her family to be aware of the potential for Bella’s presence at least in nearby woods, if not farther out—though he was still confused over his meeting with the human, so many miles from Forks, and would not let others know such a detail until he was more sure of his own grasp of reality—yes, though he had spoken to Alice about at least a portion of his concerns, Aro found it insufficient to leave it up to the Olympians’ personal wariness during their hunts, and so he took to patrolling the nearer forest for at least a few hours each night and would go further still those days he might reasonably be expected to hunt.

In the course of a handful of weeks, he was surprised to find that he was happening upon Bella more often, as though his unconscious mind was managing to intuit some pattern to her appearances that his thoughts failed to grasp in explicit reflection. The realization rose slowly, a hypothesis formed half-buried and unearthed as much as tested by each meeting. —“meeting” was not quite the correct term, most of the time, as he watched her stumbling progress through the woods from a distance. Attempting to address her, question her, or redirect her all proved useless; rarely did any of his words or actions draw her gaze, and she was invulnerable to instruction.

This trance-like state was not what disturbed him most, nor was it her ill preparation for hiking, her frequent nearness to mortal chill, or her remote likelihood of providing sustenance to one of his well-meaning but fallible hosts. Despite what he endeavored to have Alice believe, he was not too worried that that particular fear would come to pass—especially if Alice herself saw nothing to indicate his bondmate-to-be would be so injured. And Aro knew from Alice that while Bella was often tired these days at school, she was otherwise as healthy as a vampire could determine her to be from a fair distance.

(Which was, it should be said, quite well, even without Alice’s precognition. There were reasons a vampire with sufficient control and the inkling to do so could make as fine a medical doctor as Carlisle.)

No, what disturbed him most was how she would vanish. Every meeting made him more certain she was no apparition—and every conclusion, with her disappearance, cast him into new doubt. At least the meetings did not have that clouded, nearly drunken feeling that would overtake him when he had seen visions of her. He felt as clear and as sharp as ever.

As much as he could feel, at least, under his current diet. He wondered if perhaps, now that he had found a mate, he had best return to old ways—or would she curse his bloodthirst? But could he afford, in his position, to continue to abstain from the better sustenance? He shook his head to quell any sense of indecision. For as long as he was here among the Cullens, he would respect their rules—and their treaty—and it was best not to seed futures otherwise for dear Alice to find.

He threw his thoughts to the trees and undergrowth again, reasserting attention to the current task as he flew through the woods, which were lightening in hesitant shades to the cloudy tenor of early morning. Quite late, for him to seek her out, but his earlier patrol had not found her, and he had grown bored of Carlisle’s home. A more and more frequent occurrence, these days, his boredom. “It’s your boredom that makes you dangerous,” Marcus had told him once, long ago, before—

Before.

He both loathed and longed to meet Bella again, and that was fuel enough for the fire of his mind to burn. The flavor of inconvenience she provided him was even growing too pungent—or perhaps too sweet, beckoning ever toward deeper indulgence. A memory of Edward’s thirst scorched up his throat, and his mouth filled with venom which he swallowed down with force. _A blessing for us both, mia tesoro, that you smell more of roses than wine to me._ He exhaled through his nose to rid himself of a catch of bitterness, that the potency of Edward’s memory would bear so much sway on his own experience. This was a familiar complaint, for him, of his power, and he could after so long practice manage it well— _he,_ Aro, would not be made nearly so ravenous as Edward, no. Bella Swan was much more than—his thoughts skipped and hesitated to imagine it even in comparison to what she would be in truth, repulsed at the idea—a _meal_.

On the next inhale came fresh evergreen, clean dirt, and the must of decay, and winding like a whisper through the layers of odor was the one he sought. He sprang toward it—not in transgression to his hosts, he mused, and yet hunting a human once more.

There was something different, though. Something in the sound of her steps in soft dirt as he approached—louder, regular, _purposeful_ —

 _She’s awake,_ he realized, and in a flurry he abandoned his supernatural pace for a human speed, brushed his hands over his suit jacket and pants, and ran his fingers through his hair to make its length appear less windswept. He dismissed the idea of retreat as soon as it arose. This opportunity shone too fiercely to leave alone, for all that she would certainly find his appearance, besuited in the woods, incongruous. Odd.

 _I am odd_. He knew this. Odd, even for an immortal of his age. _Maybe it is best she begin to get the gauge of me. Surely the risk to our secret is not too great; let her see me as only some eccentric, for now._ He would have her _alone_ and _alert_ for once. Anticipation hummed through him, and he forced himself to maintain a constant pace, neither slowing to savor it nor quickening in eagerness for its end.

 _So she does herself take walks, if near enough to her home and daylight._ He wondered if this held any connection to her farther wanderings. As she at last came into his view, pacing in a clearing around an errant outcropping of a trio of boulders, he supposed he couldn’t ask.

“Bella?” he announced himself, painting his voice with surprise and stopping some yards away from her, just outside the trees.

She jumped and twirled to face him. He watched, with mounting amusement, as a full five rapid expressions passed over her before she settled into surprised but polite confusion. “Oh. Um. Hello, there.”

“Hello.” He smiled. Warmly, but politely. It was very nearly a wholly sincere expression for once. He allowed himself a moment of basking—Bella stood before him, she _saw_ him, she would _speak_ to him—but carried on before her own senses would register much delay. “These are lovely woods for a walk, aren’t they? Not too wild, so close to town.”

If she had seen him further out, miles away, she truly did not seem to remember; nothing in her bearing spoke of recognition at his reference to distance. At best, she only relaxed at the broaching of a neutral topic. A layer of tension in her frame dissolved. _Such is small talk for,_ he considered. For once, he was happy to await however his conversational partner would respond. This may have been a script, but it was a role he was glad to play.

“Yes.” She brought her hands together, seeming uncertain what to do with them. “It is. The Cullens’ house must be kind of far, though, to walk?”

The sharpening of her gaze then arrested him. _What made you think to ask that?_ A voice in his head whispered _danger_ , but the tone was more of intrigue than wariness.

“Oh, yes. I didn’t walk the whole way, of course.” He didn’t quite want the lie that spun together in his thoughts. That he was obligated to share it gave him a new sympathy for every vampire he’d ever passed judgment on for illegal revelation. “I was taking an early morning drive when I felt a whim to pull over and see the forest on foot. Do you walk here often, _cara mia_?”

She hesitated. He felt himself step one foot forward as the silence stretched on, and he reprimanded himself for a lack of control; he shifted his weight back again to disguise what he had nearly done.

She seemed to read his movement as impatience—which was accurate enough, he supposed, if on a grander scale than she would guess—and shrugged. “What does that mean? ‘ _Cara mia_ ’?”

* * *

_Bella_

“Do you walk here often, _cara mia_?”

 _I have no idea_ , Bella thought as she scrambled for a normal answer. “You know, however often the aliens bring me here” simply wouldn’t do. This wasn’t Angela she was talking to, after all. At his apparent restlessness, she gave up with a shrug. _Let’s change the topic._

“What does that mean? ‘ _Cara mia_ ’?”

Aro bore her question with grace, giving no sign that he minded the abrupt turn. “A term of endearment in Italian. It translates to ‘my dear’—oh, you blush.”

That she did, and she felt his eyes cast over her face as it warmed, which only aggravated her embarrassment further.

“Don’t fret, it’s quite casual.” He smiled, as pleasantly as before. “I will stop using it toward you if it makes you uncomfortable, however.”

“No, it—it’s fine.” Bella cleared her throat and looked aimlessly about at the trees, willing her skin to cool. It was just like Mrs. Cope at school calling her “dearie,” after all. “Your English is very good. Have you always lived in Italy?”

In her peripheral vision, the man shook his head; a lock of dark hair slipped over his shoulder. His voice was not much more than whisper. “Not always. For many years now—but I was born in Greece. And I have traveled a good deal.”

He wasn’t that much older than her, she thought, and yet the gentle solemnity of his voice, the lowering of his shoulders as she turned back to him, the subtle tilt to his head as he gauged her reaction—

 _He has lived long, and knows many secrets._ The conviction coalesced in her mind, softer but more specific than any she had had for the family so far. But he really didn’t seem _that_ much older than her—early twenties? There was just something about his manner…

“Why did you move?” She felt her cheeks grow hot again. “Sorry, I’m being nosy—“

“It is well, _mia cara_ , for one to be curious. As long as you don’t mind answering my questions in exchange.” He spoke with an air of finality and of decision, like she had already agreed to such a transactional approach to their conversation.

Bella turned aside and surreptitiously hid her face by looking down at her shoes. Breathing was hard, and her heart was speeding. She looked at him through her hair, a brief moment to investigate all she could without staring openly. He did nothing but stand, a neutral but alert position—arms at his sides, head never turning from her direction—and stare at her, like he didn’t know that it was rude to do so, that he might make her uncomfortable, or like there was something he was valuing over her comfort in this matter. She did not, however, get the feeling he was attempting to unsettle her. Not so specifically.

“…I don’t mind,” she answered as she lifted her head and faced him properly. She wouldn’t be cowed, whatever was going on here. She faced him fully, mimicking his own simple stance, and met his gaze dead-on. Her heart leapt in her chest; she swallowed and spoke. “What did you want to know?”

* * *

_Aro_

Bella consumed him, with the pink blossoming on her pale skin, with her scent, with the very shape of her standing among the trees. He could see her pulse fluttering madly in her throat; he was making her nervous, and he was torn on that—she was so charming, like this, blushing and adorable in this bashful mood—but he thought she might run off, and he did not wish to lose this unexpected chance for conversation.

“If you so adore the sun, why astronomy?” A safe topic, career plans. The relatively impersonal topic further relaxed her, her breathing evened out—and to Aro, this was like watching beautiful treasure being locked away in some vault to which he did not have the key. Not yet. _Bella, you do not need to hide from me. I will coax out your every concern and soothe each in turn, in time._ Oh, he was growing very sentimental, wasn’t he? Wholly unnecessary. He pushed those thoughts aside. “A fairly nocturnal occupation, isn’t it?”

She shrugged lightly. “I’ve always been fascinated by space. This planet, Earth, is so small, you know? On an astronomical scale. I’d like to learn more about what’s out there.”

Ordinarily Aro spent little time reflecting on the actual contents of the night sky. He knew as much as any modern, educated adult might, if not rather more—a benefit of his diet—but he did not really give much weight to considering at length what the void above might hold. Enough excitement to be had on the world he’d always known, wasn’t there? But Bella’s eyes grew distant and stared through him as she spoke, as though she was peering into the cosmos through some window fashioned from his body. It made him wonder at what drew her interest up and out, and that made the topic novel in interest to him.

“So why did you move?” Her question, repeated, followed only a perfunctory pause after she’d answered his own. He supposed, by the rules of the game he’d just established, he ought to answer. In _some_ manner, anyway—and as it pleased him for her to know him, that manner should be some version of honest.

“Professional opportunities.” He clasped his hands behind his back and looked up at the clouds, giving her the reprieve from his stare that her anxious little human mind likely sought. “Greece never treated me well, back then, for all that I loved the land itself.”

“What is it you do?”

He shifted his gaze back down toward her, face still tilted to the sky, and smirked in mild victory. “Isn’t it my turn?”

She straightened, visibly rising to the challenge, and huffed in amusement. “That’s your question for me, then. Yes. It was your turn. Now—”

Aro laughed, and she started, her voice falling away as she stared at him. After a moment’s indulgence in the feeling, he corralled his humor back into something quieter. “That was not my question, which of course you know.”

Bella looked at him, lips curling up despite obvious resistance. She tilted her head for him to continue. His heart fluttered—metaphorically—and rebelled at this semblance of deference. _Bow your head to no one_.

In an exhale and an inhale, he refocused on the goal at hand. How delightful, and how torturous, to learn of a person’s workings by such small grades.

“What do you think of my family here?” ‘Family’ in a special sense—literally they were of the same _species_. He doubted anyone had managed to classify his kind and live to publish, but _kingdom phylum class order…_ One could say he was engaging in some kind of rhetorical device, from there. The question wasn’t a lie, in short. It was just misleading her to believe what she already did. He enjoyed this game, this razor’s edge, even if an alarmed figure in the shape of Caius glared from within his mind’s eye.

She hesitated, with hands gripping each other tightly before her and eyes wide on him. Even by his estimation of a human’s inner clock, the silence was long—so by his own clock it was a long hesitation indeed. His inner Caius monologued to beat the best senators of Rome for the duration, until that voice quieted under the new conviction that stole over him as he watched Bella fidget. _She is guilty._

That was interesting. _What about the coven here brings you guilt, mia Bella?_ He took a step forward, and this time he did not take it back. She froze. An instinct swelled within him—his eyes drew to and rested overlong on the speeding pulse in her neck—and she gulped, breaking his focus and allowing him to flick his eyes back up to her own. _You would not be a mere meal, but I am sure you would taste sweet._ With yards between them, he imagined she could not tell precisely where his gaze had lain, but her uneasiness indicated some awareness nonetheless.

“That bad?” he offered to her at last, and she exhaled and nodded, before going rigid and shaking her head profusely.

“I mean—the Cullens are fine— _great_ —I just—” She shrugged again, the motion jerky with nervous energy.

“They’re…a bit odd, aren’t they?” He supplied with an understanding smile.

Her shoulders slumped, and she took a deep breath. “But they’re very nice to me.”

“Of course.” _They should not be else, to you._ He chuckled. “I’m glad to hear it.”

She had turned half-away from him again in her anxiety and now looked at him, shyly, aside. “I’m sorry. They’re lovely.”

“Yes, they are.” _I suppose_. “There’s no need to apologize.” He took more steps nearer her, calculating the distance to be one that would not discomfit her further. “You asked my occupation, yes? My brothers and I handle antiques.”

It was an easy narrative, and nearly accurate at that. They definitely owned plenty, and they _had_ made some of their money in careful purchases and sales over the years.

“Do you travel much for work, then?” she asked, and he could tell from her tone she had forgotten the agreement. He didn’t feel the need to remind her, as long as she would still answer his own questions.

“Rather, though rarely outside of Europe. This trip, for instance, was just to visit our family. Pleasure, and not business.”

“You’ve definitely still seen more of the world than I have. I wonder what that’s like.” She shifted onto her heels and looked down at the dirt. _Contemplative_ , he guessed. _Wistful._

 _Young_.

He was already decided against turning her until she was older, but a new and unfamiliar reluctance washed over him; its cause and against what, he could not fully determine. He paused as a wave of nostalgia welled up and broke whatever his prior intentions for this conversation may have been.

_What will you become? I do not think it should be a shape of my choosing…_

“Everyone sees the world, and however much of it, in a way wholly their own, Bella. Travel may broaden one’s view, but sometimes a close and years’ long knowing of a place and its people grants its own wisdom.”

 _And if your secrecy resists even my touch, then I will never know_ your _unique view as I may know another’s. What will you become, in internal movements hidden from me? What forces move through you?_

She looked up at him slowly and nodded. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. I’d like to see more places, though. Um. Thank you.” A blush on her cheeks again—perhaps a little ashamed of her own sincerity? Perhaps she did not know what she thanked him for?

But he felt he knew, that on some level—whatever prey in her saw the predator him—she _knew_ —

And something at once hot and cold within him flinched away from the thought of someday touching her and discovering she was no less susceptible to his grasp than any other he’d met.

“Be careful in the woods alone.” The warning escaped him without consideration, and his tone was more grave than he would’ve wanted, were he hiding behind normality as he had been only a moment before. But he found that script now useless. “Better to not be, if you can help it.”

She inhaled sharply and shuddered. Too long later, by his awareness, did she cross her arms, attempting to pass it off as a chill. But he saw the unease in her, which he felt was not his doing, and wondered again at the mystery of her. _What do you hunt? And what do you fear?_

“I should be getting back,” she mumbled and turned from him. He felt a shallow loss at this, but was gratified at her apparently immediately heeding his words. “Have a good day.”

He nodded in response—she did not see it, did not seem to care in her haste to leave—and watched her go. He watched long, and listened longer, as she worked her way back toward the woods-bordering neighborhood from which she had come and to her home therein. Though he could not hear her quite that far, past the whispery doings of the forest and the muted drone of collected, suburban human activity, he did listen as the sound of her merged with that of those so loosely gathered.

 _May your walls protect you_. The words came to him in a language no living human spoke. With ancient images in his mind and a time-faded longing in his chest, he turned and trekked away between the old trees of the New World.

His own duties would soon reclaim him and take him out of such an easy distance to her, and he did not know when he would see her again. _I will not go back to the Olympians’ house, I think. Not today or tonight._ These forests felt like Bella, now, wherever he wandered within them. He would wander for a longer while.

* * *

_Bella_

Since her alien-shaped worry of the previous morning, her sleepwalking weighed on her anew—and her courage built to spite it. It took Bella out of her house before sunrise and into the trees, to see if they could trigger and so help unravel the vague memories of her “dreams.” _The family_ had for once been far from her thoughts. So...of course she’d run into one of them. Surprise—fear—dismay—frustration—resignation—these were the emotions inspired by the sudden appearance of Aro Unknown-Last-Name.

As she reentered her house, closing the backdoor as quietly behind her as she could manage, she reflected that on the whole the interaction had been more tolerable than she would have expected, right up until it hadn’t been. He couldn’t know what bothered her so about the woods, but his cautioning had reminded her too much of her own fear. Her courage that’d built up had collapsed like a house of cards. She’d fled.

Only as she hung up her jacket did she reflect that she otherwise would not have ended their conversation so suddenly. (She didn’t like being rude, after all.)

“Bella?”

Charlie’d paused in the kitchen doorway, all in uniform save for his jacket, with an empty mug in hand. Headed for the sink, likely, before he’d seen her. “Did you go out early again?”

 _I don’t want to talk about that._ Something akin to the panic she had felt at the sight of Aro flared within her. She swallowed and pushed it away. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice failed before she could provide further context; her throat felt parched. She’d sat on the question for days now, and hadn’t really meant to ask it, but she couldn’t pull it back in from the air.

Forehead wrinkled now with confusion as much as concern, Charlie tilted his head. “About what?”

“What happened to the Cullens at school. Before I came here. The bullying.”

He sighed and completed his path to the sink, placing the mug within with a ceramic-on-metal _clink_. “I didn’t want you to think that’s what might happen to you. And I didn’t want to color your impression of them, either.”

Bella raised her eyebrows at this. “Did you think I would hold being bullied against someone?”

“No.” He stood bent forward with his hands turned out and palms on the ledge of the counter. “I just didn’t want you to worry about it at all.”

She hummed. There was no way to tell him how or why those incidents were important to her, and no way she would have known when she’d moved here that they would be. She didn’t understand it herself, and felt a smoldering shame in her chest at harboring secret obsessions, at succumbing again to nightmares—

 _It isn’t your fault._ The statement sat like a stone in her thoughts. She knew it was true but couldn’t seem to really believe it. The currents of her attention shifted around it; if she bit down, it would crack her; if she swallowed, it would choke her.

Her father placed a hand on her shoulder and met her eyes. “Be careful in the woods, Bella. Don’t forget what I said.”

She nodded. Her voice was lost again. Charlie paused, seemed to want to say something—but then only nodded in return and let go of her.

“I’m heading out now.”

“See you later,” she managed as he walked out of the kitchen. He threw his hand up in a loose wave behind him.

After she heard the front door open and close, she went up to her room. Her mind drifted from sensation to sensation in her once-more-sleep-deprived fatigue as she ascended the stairs, and when she found herself in her room, she was wondering at Aro’s question about the sun and astronomy, that he’d remembered even two such facts about her. _Maybe he’s just that type_. _People-oriented, and he just naturally collects others’ personal details…_

It’d fit with the odd charisma he had—she had noticed it when he sat in the Cullens’ living room, how everyone had seemed to array themselves around him, like there were invisible spokes or silken tendrils tying anyone near him to him. The impression glittered like obsidian. It reminded her, inexplicably, of Edward’s eyes black with anger the day they’d met, and of the blurrily remembered wisp of large black eyes from her dream. She laid down on her bed, and her mind dipped into that shimmering darkness, which drew her into a fitful nap.

* * *

While in truth the dryad called her again several hours later, Bella once more did not remember who she was, only that she _was_ something other than a sad creature made to walk the forest at some other’s whim, and it felt to her to be centuries ago that she was that fuller person.

The dark forest felt charged with something _else_ than just the dryad’s summons—or maybe they were demanding her presence in a new way. The cold air felt thicker than usual to her, harder to push her limbs through, but anticipation for _something_ buzzed and crackled in her veins and muscles and bones. Her head pounded with it, a rising pressure, in time to her heartbeat.

When the milky form of the dryad broke from the shadowy bodies of the trees, the air thinned and the pressure weakened.

“All I have placed before you is but a promise.” Their lips did not seem to move with the words, twisting strangely against the smoky voice that Bella had grown used to. Had their speaking always been like that, at odds with itself? Hadn’t it? Gooseflesh broke out on her arms and neck as it had not for the cold. “But all I have placed before you _is_ a promise.”

“This will end now,” Bella breathed in recognition. She shivered. “Finally.”

The dryad half-turned away, one hand stretched behind to beckon Bella with curling fingers. “Not an end. But yes. Follow me, Isabella.”

The pair began their procession onward, a linear dance with the ashen and slender and tall being leading the human, unsteady and slow, deeper into the woods. The trunks slipped and curled around them like ink spilled in water, and some small part of Bella noted as the twisted and warped around their motion that they were going much farther than before. ( _Farther from where?_ the rest of her demanded, and in that chorus there was the flavor of smoke, and the small part cowered.)

The dryad sang in murmurs and whispered swells like the leaves in wind and in rustling words like the scratching of small claws on bark.

“I will show you the truth at last, and in knowledge you will find power.”

Still their lips moved independently of the arhythmic song, but Bella caught the scent of a sweet and familiar perfume, and her discomfort at the dryad’s delivery was lulled by a gentle hum. All that remained was her anticipation, which she found to be wholly her own, electrifying and animating her limbs to follow. _Finally. Finally I’ll know—_ this was the litany of her growing joy. She could not remember any questions and could not remember to what end her curiosity nor obsession burned, but still she felt the promise of release and its freedom keenly. Tears blurred her sight, and she blinked them away, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the pale figure ahead of her.

“I will free you from the burden of unknowing,

I will ease and soothe your pain of longing…”

* * *

_Jasper_

Kneeling together on the garage floor, Jasper rubbed slow circles into Alice’s back, attempting to allay the bitter fear and worry that had spiked within her moments ago when, on their way to her car, she’d fallen to her knees and brought him down too. When he asked what was wrong, she only buried herself more firmly against him.

He forced down his own cold lash of fear. _If it was for any of us, she would say something_ , he reassured himself, but the yawning pit he’d felt them standing on the edge of for many weeks now was growing wider, and he did not know how to hold either of them back from it.

* * *

_Edward_

The forest offered serenity. Edward could not accept it.

It also offered the warm blood of miscellaneous animals, which he could accept, if only to keep his cursed existence from becoming more hellish than it already was. He endeavored to think just of that, the basic rhythm of his survival (hunting, drinking, waiting for the thirst to grow unbearable—repeat), and to be a knife sharpened only to this single point, even as his sister’s visions blossomed unbidden in his mind’s eye again and again—visions of his failure, of Bella, of Angela—

He frayed and wore over his new routines like a rope against rough stone. Out of self-loathing, he dangled himself off a precipice, over an abyss that dared him.

When he caught the trail of a mountain lion one evening, he felt a ghost of anticipation, a pleasure allowed only by his steel-trap of self-disgust having rusted under his weeks of creeping desolation. The teeth loosened; hungry impulse wriggled free, scathed but undaunted, and launched him toward his prey. He dissolved into that thirst, dissolved into not more than one hungry creature among many in the order of the world, and his joy leapt in time with his body, glad to be free from the tyranny of his will. He laughed, manic, as he propelled himself through the trees, uncaring if his current prey noticed him and fled—there would be more.

In fact, there _was_ more—more, there was _better_ —another scent pulled him from his course, soft at first but then setting him to a conflagration, _familiar_ but his mind flinched from recognition, and so his feet carried him on to discovery—he felt fire bite at his heels (his shoes, he was unworthy, were discarded days ago)—and all he could feel when he lunged around the rotting shell of an old and massive evergreen, and his vision was overwhelmed by pale skin under clear moonlight, was the endless temptation of that smell—and there was only monstrous thirst, and the feeling that he was only a monster after all, and the abyss loomed below—and that this was inevitable and so why shouldn’t he put an end to his torture?—as he reached out and wrenched her by her arm toward him, that he should put an end to his suffering and prevent her from becoming a monster worse than him.

* * *

“Nothing to excess.”

\- _One of three maxims inscribed at the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- KTOE EXPRESS 2k21: DRAMATIC IRONY FOR THE DRAMATICALLY ANEMICy i’m so sorry that was such a bad joke please forgive me
> 
> \- New opening quote for Part 1 of KToE added to Chapter 1, and copied here if you’re curious:  
> — “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
> 
> \- Cover art is now available for viewing at the supposition-way tumblr! There’s a “real” cover that I spent a fair amount of time on (the Bella one), and a bonus one that I phoned in! (sorry @ Aro)
> 
> \- If you notice an inconsistency or a typo that bothers you, let me know.
> 
> \- Comments feed me 🙏 I love........thoughts.


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